The Final Season... (No Spoilers here) · 8:18pm Mar 9th, 2019
So, I'm not going to talk about the huge amount of spoilers in the trailers...
...But you never realize how much you really care about a show until you see the announcements of how they're going to draw everything to a close. The final official stories about characters that we are never going to see official content about again after the final movie's hype dies down. It makes me feel pressured to finish these fics I've had sitting incomplete or unstarted for a while, and saddened that this really is the last couple years of a show that I've been watching for 9 years now.
I was 19 when this thing came out, and it's been one of only a couple shows I followed closely enough to watch every episode of during that time, as well as I've EVER followed for that long. (for context, the only other show I've followed every episode of for the past 5 of those years is No Evil) The only shows I even tried to see every episode of before that were Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Star Trek Voyager, and Digimon Adventure, and I don't think I've ever been this enamored with any of them. I've tried to keep up with other animated fantasy shows like Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, and Star Vs, but they're comparatively hard to access, and I don't care for the constant silliness that virtually every other mainstream fantasy cartoon feels the inexplicable need to inject. I've tried to follow Game of Thrones, and can probably recap most of the series and pick up on a new episode and follow along, (Tyrion is best thronie) but once again, inaccessible to somepony who doesn't watch TV (I didn't even own one for several years there).
In this time, I've ran 2 or 3 MLP based roleplays, ran several local fan-clubs, moderated several chat rooms and forums, and eventually decided (later than I should have, which I now consider a life-lesson about just doing things) to write some fanfiction, and went to the first non-professional convention I've ever bothered to go to. (Nightmare Nights 2017)
It's really funny to me that the first time my friend WolfNanaki told me to watch MLP, on a late night walk on our college campus, our other friend was all like "I'll have to take a look!" as I silently thought But you like Thomas the Tank Engine, so... Then I saw the pilot while visiting my parents for December (this was a few months before they finally got divorced, and before my brother got out of jail) and honestly, I thought the pilot was dumb. Even today, I consider the pilot to be one of the weakest episodes, which is funny, seeing as it was the one which Lauren Faust (who the Bronies who claim the show is ruined multiple times per season have deified as if she's the one good person to ever be on staff) was most involved with. I thought, "maybe it gets better... What's the third episode like?" and you know what? It was cute in a way I didn't see television do. Not like cute as a joke or so blown out of proportion that it was insipid and ugly, just unabashedly cute: the character designs, the voices and personalities, the world they lived in, the things they did, all of it was delightful to watch. It was also funny, genuinely funny, on its own terms, in an era where Spongebob and his army of clones had homogenized all cartoons into constant plotless absurdist slapstick, this show watched more like a sitcom, with interesting stories that lasted the whole 22 minutes and jokes that revolved around the intricacies of the characters and their situations. It even had a fantasy world which was inspiring, the kind you want to roll around in and learn every little detail about. It was fun and enjoyable on a level that no other cartoon had been when I stopped watching TV in high school.
When the Season 2 opener came about, I assembled the fanclub I'd been building, and we watched the first part on the couches in my apartment. (remember, that was the only one where the episodes came out a week apart) When Discord said "Looks like we might be due for a big ol' storm of Chaos!" and the words "To be continued..." came on the screen of my 32 inch iMac which I'd set up on the coffee table, we all literally started screaming. This show was fucking awesome, and we were totally invested in the insane plights of these colorful little ponies. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much fan-art, predicting all sorts of plot elements that never showed up in the second part, was drawn in that one week wait: it's a testament to just how rabid this fanbase is for content. With the "Children's Education" rating dropped in favor of the noticeably darker "YA", and the departure of Lauren Faust, Season 2 was a BLAST. Let me be clear on something before the Bronies get upset: I like Lauren Faust and Season 1, I just think MA Larsen was a better show runner, and having worked on similar projects, I know they both get WAY too much credit and blame for what was effectively the work of a huge team of people giving their all.
On that note, I'd like to end this ramble with a realization I had on the people who made this and the fandom after I'd managed to sleep off HarmonyCon and the emergency drive I had to make to El Paso the next week. When the show staff gives panels and all that, they keep saying "the fans make the show what it is", and when they're asked what made them want to work on the show, they say "it's a job". What they're trying to say is, to them, My Little Pony was just a children's show that was relatively pleasant to make, because it's smart and funny and aesthetically pleasing. But the fandom? The cheering crowds? The constant fan-mail? The conventions vying just to get them to come sign a few posters and give a few panels? That's what makes it worth effort. That's what makes them give their all, the late nights and the stress they put themselves through, the constant attention to making the best show they can, the little things that they throw in because they KNOW the fans will find and appreciate them. They do it because we make it worth the time in a way that the vast majority of shows NEVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO, and they all have that sinking knowledge that, after this, they may never have this opportunity again: this is the biggest cartoon they've ever been a part of in their entire life, and in response, they do the best damn job they can. That's why My Little Pony is so awesome. They go into work and treat it like the greatest show ever made. (and honestly, it may well be)
This show was a group effort, an unspoken contract between the fans and the people who make it, and that right there is the most magical part of it all.
i know how that feel was a big adventure time fan so i already experienced the end of a show, my only hope is with MLP that they answer my questions before it over, give me info on spike parents, show me the origins of princess Luna and celestia, what happened to the apple parents how they kick the bucket etc over all though i want the show to end with a satisfying finale it been one hell of a ride
I had a SO that got me into the show because she didn't think I wouldn't make it after she was going to be gone. She was a monster. She was correct.
I wanna know if some of the villains reform or not
Well, I have a feeling that they will still have Equestria girls shorts and movies for a while we might get some of the old show from that.
I still a little hopeful about gen 5 abd that the fan base will like it as well.
I expect too lose a few people to it but hope it can still work
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Oh yeah, "Come Along With Me" made me cry, and I hadn't even seen most of the episodes. There are quite a few things they haven't gotten into, and maybe they won't get into them by the end of the series. I'm guessing that Season 9 will have a lot more exposition and adventure than the previous ones, just so they can get it all out while going out with a bang.
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Well, we'll see. We know that a couple are coming back, so maybe they will. The believable reformations are part of what makes the show uniquely interesting.
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I know they're saying there will be at least one movie and some shorts after Season 9, and the comics will probably keep going a while longer, as they have with other series...
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I'm waiting for FiMFiction and some of the cons to branch out to more than just MLP. Hopefully I'll have some traction on this Dark Fantasy setting by then, then they'll be one-stop-shops for me to enjoy the last of MLP while building that up.
Maybe it's just because I've only ever been connected to the MLP community through fimfiction and very rarely on a few forums, or maybe it's because I just get bored with television in general, but I personally dropped off from watching the show after season six. And even before that I was feeling pretty strongly that it should have ended at season four. Because once you've had a DBZ fight, you've effectively cashed in all credibility in the name of spectacle in my books. It doesn't help that not long after I actually took the time to watch shows like Gravity Falls and Steven Universe, and found them more entertaining and much, much better written. (And I just like the music in the latter more than MLP's.)
So, I'm not really all that fussed about them ending the show. I figure they're just going to run a new spinoff in any case, whether its putting in more effort with Sunset Shimmer or actually doing something with all the worldbuilding they've been in the last few seasons. And if not? Well... it isn't the end of the world. This site is still here, as are many others. "Nobody is dead so long as there are still those who speak their name" as the saying goes, and it applies just as much here as it does with people.
I still wish it wasn't ending.
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I don't think anypony wants it to end
I've felt a genuine warmth for this show every time I watched it.
I started out when I was just in my early teens and didn't actually think I'd like it.
I'd repeat that mantra of, I don't like it throughout the entirety of the first season, but I kept watching it.
I never really got into the fandom proper, but I wish that I did.
I'll miss this show with all my heart, and hope that at least a sliver of it survives into gen 5.