DM: Okay. Everypony in Ponyville gathers to meet the Princess sisters. All the townsfolk are excited and pleased to have their royalty back. They are welcomed with great cheers, confetti, flowers… Spike’s very happy to see Twilight safe and sound… Luna’s just happy nopony seems to hate her… And yeah. All the little ponies in the magical land of Equestria lived happily ever after. The end.
Fluttershy: What? You mean… It’s over? Already?
DM: Thanks for playing, girls. It was epic, but there’s nowhere for the story to go from here. I don’t think we’ll be doing this again for a while.
Here's a thought experiment for you: Suppose Friendship is Magic had ended right here, for whatever reason. No slice-of-life episodes, just the two-part pilot with no series hook at the end.
Well, if that were the case...it probably would've been a movie instead of a two-parter tv show. Which would've meant that it probably would've been longer than 40 mins, leading into either more character development or more badass Nightmare Moon scenes, or maybe something completely different.
I would have walked into the sunlight...I just had a weird idea for a vampire in my wod campaign I really hope I can gm some day. This is going to be...Malkavian if I'm right.If it had ended I wouldn't have cared about Kiki or had any of the wonderfull consequences for being a fan.
Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes!The dead rising from the grave!Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!
I anticipate the next comic to be agonizingly adorable as the main six all plead with the DM to continue, and even Rainbow Dash grudgingly admits she had fun and would like to continue.
I also anticipate a dozen commentors going HNNNNNNNG.
I also anticipate being 20% more recognizable now that I have an avatar.
EXACTLY THE POINT MY FRIEND, and I'm quite glad you asked that question, for you see I've posted on this here webcomic at least a good dozen or fifty times, and I dare say that without an avatar, it is right hard to recognize a lady. While I have not posted quite the volumes as some gentlemen such as yourself have, I reckoned that it was a darn shame to continue posting in virtual anonymity despite having a username, and an avatar is a right smashing way to make oneself known, jolly good now, don'tcha know?
And thus, the legend of Raxon was born. Who would have thought that a mere 70-ish pages ago, he would go on to bring much joy and laughter to the readers of this comic? No one could have guessed. But deep down, we all knew it was destined to happen. Deep down, we knew it was fate.
Well, you did manage to get your avatar moving. How'd you do that, anyway?
Also, @Karilyn
HNNNNNNNG. And that's so true about language! Whenever my sister and I try to talk British, it never fails that we end up in extreme Southern accents. Why does that happen? How does a brain switch from Fancy to Farm, unless you're Applejack?
Well it's actually rather simple Ranubis. If one of your hobbies was linguistics like my girlfriend, you might be aware that Southern Americans actually have the closest accent of English, in any part of the world, to the accent of English which was most widely spoken by the British common class at the time of the early colonization of the America South. There's been virtually no change in Southern English accent since early colonization, while the most common British English accents, and most common American English accents, have changed somewhat significantly (or at least something like that, I'd have to confer with her to be confident on that claim).
Errrrr... yeah... PEOPLE CLAIMING STUFF ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT CITATIONS.
(Random fun fact of the day: Southern American Dialects are the largest accent group in the United States. This fact was brought to you by Wikipedia, and is probably not actually true.)
But what do I know, I'm not the linguist, and I'm just making this up as I go along.
Second, maybe up to and including Victorian
period south, but there is little similarity between any English accent and the modern common American southern accent. occasionally you'll have a few words that cross over (jamaican "bacon" and english "beer can" is an example), but for the most part its like switching on a light.
Third... I got one too. But I got mine last night and used it first last page, so you know, hipster talk and all that.
That is me, yes. Though I've practically foresaken writing now. No inspiration with a lack of interest from readers killed it for me.
I'm the kind of guy who would do things for the sake of others, so when nobody bothers to read what I write I end up with nothing.
(Not that people should have read it, my stories sucked! I'm not sure I updated FF completely, but it is updated completely here: http://blackraider78.deviantart.com/)
Also: Thank you, GuyWithPasta for NOT getting an avatar >.>'
Figure I might as well jump on the avatar parade. And my avatar is best avatar since it has the master race of 4e D&D. (I really love Shardminds. I believe I've mentioned that. Many times.)
I've apparently had an account on comicfury for a while? Who knew, right? Guess I might as well add an avatar and subscribe. I think this might be the webcomic that caused me to create the comicfury account in the first place, I forgot I had it.
Y'know, now that the avatar bandwagon has rolled into place, us little folk without avatars are going to stand out almost as much as avatar folk did when no one had pretty pictures by their name. XD
Yeah, except after this page you're only gonna see all of them like once per page, and the same 6-8 over and over again. Lets not forget who runs these comments.
I know, it's weird. Where the heck is my darned angry mob? It's like nobody appreciates what I do! Inconsiderate is what it is. Makin a man wait on his lynch mob. Do I have to write a horrible Jabba/Gummy crossover crackfic? Give me the mob, and Jabba doesn't have to be seduced by Jedi Master Gummy.
"Well it was a better TV movie than that one with the smooz thing if you remember that. My kids liked it and it wasn't painful to sit through. The ending just kinda comes out from nowhere but what do you expect, it's just a kids movie."
I didn't learn about the show until the episode "Bridle Gossip" aired so I guess i'd just never have heard of "FiM" had it only gone 2 episodes.
I'd of survived fine, just wouldn't have any reason to watch TV on Saturday mornings. It would be a shame for my daughter though, as she really enjoys the toys and online games on the Hub website.
Actually I started off parodying the Flim-Flam Brothers, but I lost it midway through, and started combining both stereotypical British with stereotypical American Southerner, into some sort of horrible bastardization of the English language.
"I ain't reckon that none of ya'll would care a spot of tea and some crumpets?"
Well surely it would have been an excellent two part episode. So good that they would make a trilogy out of it, which would receive critical acclaim. But then twenty years later due to popular demand they would make a prequel trilogy that follows Twilight Sparkle's father Nightmare Moon (don't ask), as she descends into madness and embraces the Dark Side, and changes from Princess Luna into Nightmare Moon. This prequel trilogy will be universally hated and tarnish everybody's memory of the original trilogy, and nerds will crawl into their basements and cling to their slashfics and pretend that A Pony Menace, Attack of the Ponies, and Revenge of the Pony never occurred, all while simultaneously begging Lauren Faust to write a sequel trilogy.
So, like the ending to the season two opening? Just a general "we won" dealie without knowing if Twilight stayed in Ponyville and wrote letters to Celestia about friendship? Hmm, might make a nice one-shot, but I don't think "bronies" would have happened. The continuity of the show, the natural development of the characters, and the "not just for kids" vibe were mostly due to the continued series.
Yeah, if it had only been a two-parter, I probably never would have heard of it, or at least pursued it. I think I remember my first contact with FiM: Flutterguy singing "Evil Enchantress". I didn't know the context or anything, but it just struck me as something special. So I'm personally glad they decided to continue it.
Even if you hadn't flat-out told us it wouldn't end now, we would know more was coming. First of all, that wasn't the end of the episode. Secondly, there was way too much foreshadowing of later episodes. Thirdly, you would have made it longer if this was it. I mean, two episodes really only has about forty minutes of the actual show. It would be at least a full hour if you were just going to end it here.
Oh. Well then, what I said about episode length would still stand. Also, new fans would beg for a new episode/movie and would probably be given one eventually. However, Lauren Faust might have gotten Galaxy Girls, so we might not have been upset for too long.
If FiM would have ended there... I would never have gotten to know it. I came in around July 2011, after the entire first season, and the second season about to start, so I had a lot to fuel my fandom at the beginning. But just a one shot like this? The world would be a different place.
I shudder to think of FiM only being those two parts. Not because I dislike them, but because I only started watching it after hearing all the good feedback it received. Maybe a movie could have spawned this fandom, maybe not, but I know that if it weren't the massive fanbase I never would have given the show a chance.
I first joined the brony bandwagon a little bit before the season 2 premeire. I watched the two parter, thought it wasn't bad, but still not the best cartoon ever. I went on to the next episode and before I knew it I was eight episodes in and escape was no longer an option.
I would still be in a deep depression if the two pilot episodes were it. I didn't really become a Brony until near the beginning of January when I decided to watch the episodes on Youtube at the prodding of some friends.
I instantly fell in love with the characters, Twilight being my favorite pony. Which reminds me, I better get to coloring my latest picture of her. :P
I'm with others in thinking there probably would have been more to the pilot in that case. I've heard the original idea was for Zecora to be the one to tell them about the Elements of Harmony for example.
For the question (what if the two part pilot was all there was?), I guess it depends in what manner these two were made. For example, if it was made to 'test the waters', and if they didn't get the response they were looking for? I know I wouldn't have gotten addicted to ponies. I came into contact with the show around 2/3s of the way through season one, and the first two episodes I watched were 'Swarm of the Century' and 'Sonic Rainboom'.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more depressing the thoughts become. There's been so many great fan works this show has inspired (this comic included coughbrownnosingcough) that I've enjoyed as much as what Hasbro had put out, it becomes really hard to imagine where all of my attention and time that I've spent in the last year would have gone. Probably into some silly MMORPG or the like, especially since with my wonky schedule I really only get together with my friends during the weekend.
Okay, no more of this thought experiment for me. Luckily, we DO still have more FiM coming our way, so for now, we have a 'Happy Ending Forever', just like the title of today's strip.
A lot would be different for me if they only had the two-part pilot. For example, I'm currently playing in an Exalted game. The guy running the game is a classmate of a friend of mine, and the reason they started hanging out and became friends is because they're both bronies. There wouldn't be any brony fandom if it was just the two episodes, which means a lot of friends would have ended up never being made. That is a sad thing to think about.
I'm new on the comment board, but I've been following the comic from strip one, and it's definitely one of my favorite webcomics right now (I totally didn't join in on the comments board because of the avatar bandwagon. Nope, no-how. Though I would like to find one that's small enough to use...).
Anyways, to answer your question (though I think several people have already said this), if the series had ended with a two-parter, well, we wouldn't be here right now, would we? We'd probably be doing something... *shudder* NON-PONY RELATED.
Yep, jumping on the bandwagon with the avatar thing. And if anyone is curious on where I got the image from, it's from a story located on fimfiction.net and it's about what happens if Harry Dresden arrives in the pony universe.
Mine took some careful pixel-altering after resizing, but I basically used the same method to get this avatar out of the create-a-pony. Paint, the selection tool (with transparency if needed), and careful resizing.
Lets see... if it ended now, that would suck. Period. So don't do it!!
I'm personally interested in how you'll do the Cutey Mark Crusaders. I feel as if you need to do add session play, where you get to play another character for a while. This'd especially work well for all the CMC episodes as well ponies like Daring Doo, and a lot of the Season 2 episodes (Which have really been singular character centered if anyone has noticed)
Regarding Southern American accents, it's true about Southerners speaking with an English accent, we just speak it with a different emphasis for parts of the words.
English accent spoken by the English is spoken in a flat tone, while Southerners speak it in a more rolling lyrical tone to put more emphasis in it.
This fact has been in a few documentaries, and I even picked up a companion book for one of them, 'The History of English' at a library sale.
Fascinating read about the history of the English language from a pidgin trade language between early Britons and the various peoples on the continent to a global trade and technical language.
That butthurt lady would probably not have lambasted it. When /co/ found it they wouldn't have been quite so enamoured. It would have died after a few generals, never become part of the lore of 4chan for its reaction images, and the original pony fans would have been happy to have a new movie.
It's obviously because he somehow stumbled upon the recipe for LIFE itself, and decided to mix up a batch. It just happened that it was the recipe for female human life. Ask yourself, would it have been better if he'd mixed up a batch of little boys?
Without the series hook, it's actually a pretty good ending. Twilight learns her lesson about the value of having friends, and everypony is happy. I think I would have survived. Making the whole thing a longer movie (or TV special) would have made sense, though.
You know, I had been joking before when I brought up hipsters, but now I'm actually considering dropping my avatar because I don't want to be associated with the whole bandwagon thing.
And I will also say this. You may have had your avatar before everyone else, but I was on that pony creator before any of you.
I watched MLP when they had flutter ponies, AppleJack was an apple obsessed klutz, and wild bushwoolies roamed the earth. I prefer the mainstream ponies.
I also have a friend who hates new gens, and prefers her G1 ponies. She calls the new versions anorexia ponies. Ah well, nostalgia filters, full speed ahead!
Assuming that A) Friendship is Magic was only supposed to last two episodes and B) they were supposed to be normal-length episodes, I think the following would have happened:
1. The fanbase wouldn't be as huge. You'd have a cult following most likely.
2. There'd easily be almost no pony memes since a lot of the catchphrases like 20% Cooler and Yay wouldn't have existed.
3. Hasbro would've advertised the hell out of it and probably put it on DVD/Blu-Ray right away with some toy support.
...So, they'd do the things we want them to do now that we are an actual fanbase?
They would have put a lot more work into those two episodes.
I know they were still working out the timing, but seriously, do a joke count of jokes you actually laughed at to jokes you didn't even notice, and the same with season 2 pilot, and you'll have a good figure of how much they've improved.
Even the last few normal episodes of season had a much better ratio there.
“[T]he slice-of-life wasn't part of the original plan as much as the high adventure was.”
According to an interview with Ms. Faust, she specifically addressed that rumor by saying that her original intent was to split slice-of-life and adventure fifty-fifty, but things didn’t work out that way.
If the series had ended at the end of the 2-part premiere, I would have never become a brony. I first became one a little after "The Best Night Ever" came out. I got into it after reading the Fan Nicknames page on the series in TvTropes.
if it had just ended there I think i would have said " Huh.... they wasted some good characters on that...still it was cool" but the force that is ponies can not be stopped, they will find a way.
Also....Silly GM you can ALWAYS find a way for the show to go on. Just never let the players see ya sweat.
I never would have discovered the zen of Pinkie! My fourth wall breaking abilities would still be deeply suppressed, and I never would have realized that I'm actually just a beautiful, texty, comment about a comic that's based on a cartoon from a franchise that's thirty years old!
if it had ended right there i think we would have a "little witch academia" situation in our hands. the two parter was before the kickstarter boom, no? i guess hasbro would have just gotten bombarded with mail and e mails and stuff to make more.