The extent of how Faust's unfulfilled ideas might have impacted FIM's quality is subjective at best, given that even she had admitted that some of her ideas were dumb and she's glad she didn't go through with them/got called out after the fact (like the horse-drawn train from season 1), but at the same time it was her realized ideas that made FIM what it was. I'd also readily argue that the alternative wasn't a sure-thing either as McCarthy's tenure was ultimately what made me stop watching the show even if other people have continued to enjoy her work.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if some, if not most, of that negative feedback for TFH is just bronies whining that it's "not a pony game anymore" and they would be lodging complaints by default. Goodness knows you'll see tons of belly-aching here on EQD on every single article mentioning it even in passing.

Ironically, these same bronies are the ones that practically demanded that Mane 6 keep doing Fighting is Magic even if it put them in dangerous legal defiance of Hasbro, and how they often cited claims about how creativity shouldn't be stunted and "let's stick it to the man". Apparently it's okay for bronies to think they can champion "dem morals and freedom" (so long as someone else ends up taking the heat anyway), but heaven forbid someone outside of your group (and let's me honest, quite a few of you consider Faust an outsider if not pariah now) similarly chooses to stick their own guns.

Odd that so many people in the comments keeping railing against Faust to "compromise". A large part of why she garners respect from some animation fans is because of her creativity and integrity, not because she's a hack and sellout. (Even with FIM, a contributing factor to it gaining attention was "wait, *who* is working on it?")

Yeah, sure, she could have buckled and didn't end up kicked off the movie, but at the same time it would have just given people all the reason in the world to avoid it if Faust had a reputation for bending over every bar the executives put in front of her prior to this movie. (Instead we have people losing interest in the movie because she's *not* involved anymore as opposed to her presence being the damning element.)

Actually, the story of Medusa already had a pretty tragic bent to it (she was literally a case of victim-blaming taken to an extreme), if anything the unwarranted vilifying the character has received is more questionable.

That in mind, it's probably the exact opposite: Faust wanted to showcase how bad a rap Medusa unfairly gets, but Sony wanted some stereotypical villainess where the movie ultimately ends up being more about the hero who defeated her. (Yes, despite her name being in the title, I would not put if past Sony to make her the antagonist instead of protagonist and that is what pushed Faust from the project.)

I know I've become rather "anti-fandom" to the extent that I don't like to bring up my hobbies and interests even *within* a fandom I might be in the company of, goes double when dealing with "neighboring" fandoms and so forth because instead of mere disagreements with one's fellows, I'll end up with all-out hate tossed around from second and third parties.

Ironically, it was my time with bronies that finally convinced me that "yes, bad apples can in fact ruin the bushel" a rather depressing conclusion for someone who had been a MLP fan since G1 where I had no real fandom to be with because I was a dude liking ponies when it was still very much a "girls only" thing and the reactions one would garner were just as bad then as they were now. Don't misunderstand though, I'm not saying bronies "ruined" it because there were bad fans even back then in that while I'm accustomed to accusations of pedophilia over MLP, it wasn't until G4 that it was coming from people *outside* of the fandom.

While I don't follow FIM anymore for other reasons pertaining to the show its self, even before then I was getting frustrated dealing with other bronies and by extension, realized I was having the same problem with every fandom I was a part of and ultimately when I "quit" one, I went ahead and dropped them all, even if I still engaged in the exact same hobbies and interests as before. It feels bitterly nostalgic to once again be "closeted" about the things I like because after decades of trying, I'm tired of trying to sort out good apples from the bad.

Non-brony chiming in from elsewhere, this particular individual and his story has been known to certain fandoms and circles as well, and we're of similar agreement of how ridiculous this is regardless of anyone's specific opinions about MLP or bronies.

Tastes are subjective, pointless to even argue about that, but this here is loathsome no matter what cartoons & animation you watch because it well and truly affects us all. Hardly an olive branch I suppose, but do know that even a many non-bronies give you our sympathy.

I wasn't expecting a grandiose goal for Twilight though, I wasn't really sure what her goal would be at all actually, given that they never implied anything at any point beyond being a magic student. (And yet, according to several Twilight fans, they were totally going to make her an alicorn princess, you can tell in the first 30 seconds of the first episode. No really, just squint extra hard.)

My departure was simple enough, after season 4's premiere I stopped going to MLP related sites outside of the random links I would get fed, to which half the time I didn't really have an opinion on anything that I was reading (which made it confusing as to why I was being lead to such things by people I knew).

I suppose as a final bit that I should recant what I said of Celestia & Luna's speculated departure or death (namely how "good" it would be).

Celestia is (or was) my second favorite character after Applejack, it's just that like with AJ, it became increasingly hard to care about them as the whole Twilicorn thing wore on, and after the season 4 premiere I had given up on them completely.

Unlike most it seems, the grand majority of the "Twilight Sparkle Show" claims I put up with were coming from actual Twilight fans, rather than from her haters doing the whole "Mary Sue" thing.

After going through months of bronies telling (and eventually proving) that Twilicorn was "planned from the beginning" by Faust and that Twilight was the sole main character, it didn't give me any incentive to keep watching the show.

Which is ironic because said Twilight fans kept using comparisons to season 1&2 or citing "Word of Faust" as if these would somehow endear me to season 3 and Twilicorn, instead it just made me start disliking season 1&2 "because they had the same problems as season 3" or how I now questioned Faust's creativity when she was seemingly going for a rather generic goal with Twilight.

The idea that season 4 supposedly lacks Twilight doesn't change anything about season 1-3 and the first movie, and I remain convinced that the other 5 just don't matter compared to Twilight anymore.

Incidentally, a majority of the time that I run into someone praising everything about the show, it turns out they're hardcore fans of Twilight and/or McCarthy. At worst, *both* of us were wrong to assume things of each other regardless of what our personal experience has been with other people. (IE: I don't think that highly of Faust, Twilight wasn't your #1 favorite.)

But it's not just Faust though, there's people who seem to blindly worship the various heads of the show including McCarthy or Hasbro as well. Can we at least agree that fanboys of this kind are bad regardless of their chosen altar?

Trying to "prove someone wrong" is not only tiresome, but somehow contradictory because at the earliest stages of this whole Twilicorn thing I wasn't trying to deny someone of their opinion. My view initially was more "doesn't this seem a bit sudden/not very well built up to" and *still* had people giving me a digital lynching for it because how dare I question McCarthy's writing.

In that regard, my view was more against the execution than the concept, and yet I got labeled a Faust worshiper (or Twilight hater) nonetheless, or how some of those same people then went on and on about trying to justify Twilicorn by downplaying the importance of the other 5. (Up to and including calling them all background ponies compared to Twilight.)

Which is why, again, it baffles me to run into Twilicorn fans now that *don't* try to shit all over the other 5 to explain why Twilight is now an alicorn princess. (Or even claim to like one of the other 5 more.)

Considering I got brought to here by Luna fans freaking out over a possible death and some of the other comments around here? I'd say I'm already getting a nice tear trickle coming in.

And again, I already ate plenty of crow when I made the stupid mistake of thinking that "mane 6" was an actual thing.

But yet you think it's okay to toss around "Faust worshiper" even before you knew what my opinion of her was? Or how you've likely used that claim against other people who had the audacity to disagree with you? Can't really sit there and criticize the use of name-calling when you do it yourself.

What would be the point in trying to act like the "better person"? You've already decided I was wrong about everything before you even started typing, and even then you're hardly one to speak considering you acted like an asshole right out the gate and even attempted to stop. How quaint, you think your own rules apply to everyone but you.

I'm here because I wanted to see what some other bronies were freaking out about, and the longer this conversation goes on, the more I hope Celestia & Luna *do* get killed off so I can be the one drinking up brony tears this time.

I got blown off and ignored for daring to have a differing opinion way back when, I didn't start going into raging asshole mode until *after* I had to put up with you Hasdrone's shit for months on end.

If you can throw around blanket accusations at the people you don't agree with, then so can I. Fair is fair.