My Rise and Fall: How I succumbed to MAGICAL FRIENDSHIP

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

S2 severely lacks Vinyl Scratch.
That's all.

[Flarecobra]

There WERE a number of cameos though. Octavia, Blueblood (AKA asshole), Photo Finish, Sapphire Shores, and Hoity Toity showed up so far.

[Locke cole]

And when the band showed up, Octavia was the one the shot focused on first and longest.

The animators know what's up.

[Flarecobra]

And it's confermed she's a chellist too.

Or however you spell it.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Locke cole

And when the band showed up, Octavia was the one the shot focused on first and longest.

The animators know what's up.

All the more infuriating that it lacks Scratch!
SCRATCH > OCTAVIA.

[Arcanum]

NPF is my only exposure to the pony fandom so I feel I'm a bit out of the loop here. What's so special about Octavia?

Also every time I watch an episode that has a new song I go back and listen to all the previous songs. I'm not sure why (other than the fact that they're all pretty awesome).

[Locke cole]

The fandom latched onto her for having an interesting design and kinda looking like a grown-up version of one of Pinkie's sisters.

[Flarecobra]

She's also got an elegance to her, plus she can play the Chello without unicorn magic.

[PCD]

While I do like the inclusion of various previous rich ponies, the reappearance of Blueblood actually took me out of it a lot. Bringing back old characters is one thing, but come on, animators, Rarity has SOME pride. She would NOT bother with that guy.

Season 2 has been far less impressive for me in general. I did like this episode (as well as Sisterhooves because man my sister and I have BEEN there), but I feel like there's some Flanderization of the characters going on, and like IHMN said, the lessons are feeling more... obvious? It feels like some of that magic spark has faded. Only some, though!

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by PCD

While I do like the inclusion of various previous rich ponies, the reappearance of Blueblood actually took me out of it a lot. Bringing back old characters is one thing, but come on, animators, Rarity has SOME pride. She would NOT bother with that guy.

Well, yeah, Blueblood was there, but he and Rarity did not communicate, and Rarity was far more interested in establishing friendships with tthe others (including that new British guy unicorn character whose name I've forgotten but who was pretty awesome.)

It's like, if you have a crush on someone in your social circle and that person rejects you, the solution isn't to stop associating with that person and anyone who knows both of you. Rarity makes new friends in Canterlot, and Canterlot happens to be where Blueblood lives. It'd be much worse if Rarity was still crushin' on Blueblood and that was her sole reason to ignore Twilight's birthday and try to have a bitchin' good time at Canterlot, but it's apparent that's not the case.

My major complaint with Season Two is that the episodes have been uneven in terms the time we've spent with characters. Rarity and Rainbow Dash have been dominating lately, and even Twilight Sparkle has increasingly taken a back seat. While Twilight was never my favorite character, I feel recent episodes have shown why it's really best that she was the main character; as a 'straight-and-narrow' type she kept the show from digressing off into various tangents and extremes. Rainbow Dash, like Solid Snake, is a character you appreciate more the less you see of her. And many of Rarity's flaws are very tolerable in small doses but become exponentially more annoying when the rest of the cast seems to marginalized for her benefit.

Mind you, I'd be making the same complaints if Season Two had been "the Pinkie Pie Show;" too much Pinkie would definitely have a similar effect of over-saturation; she's at her best when she has a few grand moments but mostly contributes with a few zingers from the sidelines. ("Dragonshy," a Fluttershy-centric episode, and "Green Isn't Your Color," a Fluttershy / Rarity / Twilight ensemble episode, actually contain my favorite Pinkie moments.)

So yeah, I'd like to see more Twilight, more Spike, more Fluttershy, more Pinkie Pie, and more Applejack. Rarity, in particular, needs to take a bit of a breather; many of her S2 episodes seem to rehash the exact same themes about her and it's reaching a point where you just want one of the other ponies to remind her of the lesson she learned just last week.