OccupyEquestria

I tend to liken false bravado to the false happiness that I've experienced working with depressed teens. Some teens have a habit of manifesting their depression in extreme happiness with very bubbly, smiling, and extraverted personalities. Such actions make them appear to be the center of attention and living a happy life when in fact they feel none of their "friends" cares about them and that they are unhappy both with their situation and their need to appear happy for every else. While I cannot speak from knowing anyone personally who manifests this in an athletic composure, I am sure that there are those who do. One of my problems with psych students is that they land on these studies and think they lead towards fact and rely too much on generalization without looking at context or specification. There are always outliers and falling into the trap "because these studies say this leads to..." Such actions often end up with someone arriving at an erroneous assumptions. While I am certainly no fan of psychology as a "science" when it does not take a biological look, if I have time I shall find some journal articles which better get across the idea that correleation and causation in these sorts of insecurity studies is not so black and white as Ginger has been making it.

For me, MLP:FiM was just a bunch of memes during Season 1. The episodes really did not catch me or draw me in to watching the whole season. It was not until Season 2 that I found myself falling in love with the series. I watched all the S2 episodes (that were out at the time) before watching half of Season 1. Most of S1 was good, but there are more episodes that were just "meh" to me in S1 than S2. For me, I really see S2 as the superior season. As such I am in no way feeling that the peak of the series has been reached and that S3 could very well be much better than S2.

Blasphemy! As a big brother, I thought it downright tearful.

I didn't get to address this yesterday Phil as I had to go so sorry for bringing it up a day later, but you're looking too much at the "surface pony" here. Two people can do the same thing for absolutely different reasons and so not really have anything in common. This is found in the differences as to why Rainbow Dash and Rarity tend towards the center of attention. Rainbow Dash is an insecure character prone to over compensation and bravado. Rainbow Dash does not tend towards the center of attention purely for the attention, but instead does so to invalidate her lack of belief in herself. She wants everypony to call her number one and make her feel better about herseslf. Such insecurities is exactly why the FlutterDash relationship has such a realistic tone to it because Fluttershy's weak-on-the-outside and strong-on-the-inside forms a perfect duality with Dash's strong-on-the-outside and weak-on-the-inside to where they are mutually supportive. As to Rarity and why Rarity does not act at all like Dash is again her being at the center of attention you brought up. Rarity has self-confidence in abundance and when she looks to put herseslf forward it is not to cover up any of her weakness, but instead in the desire for other ponies to acknowledge her accomplishments. What Rarity graves is admiration and attention towards her own talents. The flaw in this is not insecurity as Dash has, but arrogance. As for the petty and self-initerest there are major differences. Take a look at Sisterhooves Social, Rarity is a practical businesspony who is being forced to do more work to compensate for the damages that her sister's thoughtlessness is causing to her. Any business owner would feel similarly afronted even by a sister, but in the end her love for her sister reminds her that she should not be focused on business alone to the point of neglecting her family. Many of the messages in the Rarity episodes are focused on balancing a desire to be a success in life while being faithful to your friends and family.

As someone who lives in Southern California where I frequently am surrounded by real valley girls, frat boys, and surfer dudes then I am forced to say the conceptions of Shining Armor's voice are grossly misinterpreted.

Twilight clearly has an emotionally dependent personality built around Celestia. Considering Celestia's wisdom and foresight, I feel that the construction of such a relationship was entirely purposeful. As such, the opinions of Twilight towards Celestia are skewed. At the same time while what Celestia says may not be a lie, it does not have to be the whole truth.

I've personally never bought into the successor stories unless it is the "Twilight is Celestia's illegitimate daughter." Equestria is after all a monarchy with multiple princes and princesses and so naturally one of them would assume the throne or else it simply wouldn't be a monarchy. But there is certainly some growing evidence now that Twilight was being watched by the royal family from being a filly. I'm unsure how much of this was accidental though. Twilight is noted as having called Cadence a unicorn, which makes it seem that the art department might have messed up and then they were stuck playing off of it and dealing with the canonical changes in the future (if at all).

Dash also did un-Dash like things such as spending a day with Fluttershy watching butterflies. That seems far less Dashesque, but at the same time totally within her character. She is after all the element of LOYALTY and loyalty manifests itself in doing things which she might not like to please her friends as part of the tradeoff of her often being selfish. And, I really cannot see similarities between Dash and Rarity. One of the things I like about the character design in MLP:FiM is that each character is a very unique personality with fully fleshed out positives and negatives. Dash for all her loyalty can be very selfish in the things she wants while also being a pony who leaps before she looks. Rarity on the other hand is a business savvy and very practical pony who concenctrates on work first and also friends first. Of all the characters this polar opposite dichotomy seems as apparent as Appple Jack's outdoors nature compared to Twilight Sparkle's introvertedness.

So if Princess Celestia is in charge of the Day... And Princess Luna is in charge of the Night... Does that mean Princess Cadence was left with being in charge of Twilight?

I suppose with me, I'm always going for the shy girls. At the same time, I simply don't see any of the other characters having the personality that clicks with Fluttershy besides Rainbowdash. It just seems that the aggressive, but loyal nature of Rainbowdash works out so well with the loving and needing to be protected nature of Fluttershy.

I'm not really sure why the Flim Flam brothers were on here as they were neither villainious nor evil.

Yes. I am not someone for shipping, but a FlutterDash relationship is just too emotionally beautiful for me. Also I strongly agree with the sentiments on Chrysalis being the best and most "evil" antagonist we have had. Discord was more a force of nature and Luna was a jaded and resentful sister, but Chrysalis and the Changlings embody a predator and that makes them so much more than anything shown previous.

I am having a hard time figuring out whether Dash+Flutter kissing, the "Deceptive Cadence" joke within the musical score, or the "This Day" song was the highlight for me. The first episode was ok, but the second episode was pure epicness. Of all the best things that could happen this is the best possible thing..

They're a sort of "wizard did" trope. The Elements are there merely to serve as a plot device to facilitate the conclussion of a conflict whose story only utilizes them in a thematic sense. If you flesh the EoH out then you can be critical of them and also changes their purpose in the show which would skew any future use.