For once, I don't see myself collecting all of them. That Fluttershy one looks okay, but overall I think I'd much rather have ponies. Will likely pick up a Sunset Shimmer if they have one, but that's likely it.

She should visit the pony world as a one-off. Seeing how her and Celestia would react to meeting each other for the first time in ages would be great to see. Having her in the pony world full-time, however, doesn't seem like the best idea imho.

I'm going to have to back up Black Day here, despite me disagreeing with him on the movie being rushed and myself liking the movie. He gave his opinion / criticism on the movie in a straight-forward manner that was in no way "rude" or "hateful" towards anybody in any way. He has no obligation to like or praise Rainbow Rocks, MLP, or any work of art in general and is even within his rights to be harsher with his criticisms.

Pinkie Pie (the well written version, anyways), followed by Rarity. It's probably why Those two are my favorites and in that order.

Celestia by a landslide, maybe even as a Royal Sisters episode. Either case, a day in the life of Cele would be pretty interesting to see, plus this character is way underutilized and underdeveloped imho. It' be nice to see her get her own Luna Eclipsed to develop her character further, and such a thing could even be used for some very welcome large-scale world-building.

Fuck, it's been a loooong time since I posted here. 28 weeks by the looks of it, back in the "For Whom The Sweetie Bell Toils" episode followup. Good times.

To get on topic, my story began at the Escapist forums. It was the week that I finally registered as a member there (April 8 through 15 of 2011, with this story taking place later in that week), and I came across a thread that got massively derailed by "Mods are Asleep, Post Ponies" pics an the like. This made me laugh my ass off, as well as the OP of that thread. I've always had a fascination for doing weird and / or silly things even when nobody was around (in other words, not really for attention), so hearing everyone talk about a new MLP of all things and making me laugh as much as I did caused me to try it out. Starting from episode one, I marathoned through all available episodes over a couple of days, slowly warming up to it the more I watched, with Pinkie Pie being the biggest reason for it. Iirc, I managed to watch "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" on the same day it came out (or at least close to that day), and by then I was hooked. Unfortunately, the next episode - "Owl's Well That End's Well" - sucked balls hard (emo Spike is worst pony), being my least favorite episode until at least Season 3 and still being a top contender for that spot to this very day, but hey.... they can't all be winners. Nevertheless, Season 1 was a lot of fun and even today remains my favorite Season by quite a large margin (Best Night Ever ties with Friend in Deed for my favorite episode of the whole series).

That's my story. By the first summer pony-drought I was officially a brony (and certainly not a closet one either, as my family could tell you). I could go on more about things like what kind of impact the show had on me in many aspects of my life and my own experiences with this fandom, but that seems beyond the scope of this topic. If anyone actually reads this and wants to talk about things like that, feel free to respond. :)

I'll agree with you on that - NM seems kinda like the dark Super Saiyan version of Luna, though whether or not this is actually the in-canon case remains to be seen. I wasn't trying to argue against that at all, if that's what it seemed like I was doing.

As for my own personal thoughts on the "Cele vs Luna" debate, I'd say that they're probably roughly equal in strength, though that amounts to little more than my own personal headcanon at this point.

I've read the final Nightmare Rarity issue and, honestly, I consider the whole notion of "Nightmare" as a separate entity that flies around possessing ponies entirely stupid. On top of that, the show itself contradicts the comics here, which are of dubious canon at best anyways, and the show always comes before everything else canon-wise.

To get back to my original point though, the whole idea of Luna being entirely responsible for becoming Nightmare Moon, rather than some outside force making her so, is the very thing that makes her such an interesting character. She's not the victim, she's the villain who has realized she fucked up and actively seeks redemption for what she has done. Her desire to make up for everything and become a better pony, while simultaneously trying to both reign in and sort out the very emotions that made her revolt in the first place, are exactly what make Luna so likable and relatable. As I said earlier, one can't take that away from her without ruining her as a character. Her actively choosing to be the villain really is what makes Luna.... well, Luna.

I greatly disagree.

A big part of what makes Luna such a good character is that she was indeed Nightmare Moon and takes full responsibility for it. It was something she chose and actively feels regret for, though she will easily admit to her past faults - especially if it means helping another overcome their own problems and issues. To take that away from her is to take away a big part of what makes Luna work so well as a character.

We've already had an episode that made Spike the hero without making him go all Evangelion on us - it's called "The Crystal Empire". Remember how it was Spike who was put on the wall of fame there? There's also all the times that he pulled Twilight through, such as "Lesson Zero". There are many ways to make Spike useful without making it so ham-fisted or turning Spike emo, and I wish the writers would've realized that before writing this episode (or Owl's Well, for that matter).