But I personally thought it felt different to say "Ticket Master" because while in that one the conflict was minor but treated as something big, in this one the fact that the conflict is minor IS THE ENTIRE POINT! the moral even reflects that.

edited 15th Oct '11 6:36:10 PM by gingerninja666

But.... It's the best episode ever? How can you miss it?

It wasn't the BEST episode. It was still pretty good though.

I had to rewatch it to discover just how much I liked it

What you call "best", I call "a weensy bit dubious".

Shutupshutupshutuuuuuup....

IM NOT DONE YET DAMMIT

Heck, a cynical reading of "Fall Weather Friends" could be "Just admit that Rainbow Dash is better than you so you can stop fighting."

I was thinking a mixture of Twilight and Fluttershy would make sense. She even looks like it!

No, what worries me about Princess Luna's characterization isn't that it will be different from what everybody expects, but that it will be similar to some fans' guesses, just because with so many people doing so much speculation, at some point someone must have guessed correctly. And then we'll be going "Now why they pick THAT stupid fan's portrayal?"

But Rainbow Dash wasn't better than AJ. She only won due to blatant cheating.

Anyway, how could Applejack save the day? The only skill she's demonstrated so far is lassoing stuff. Unless they give her something new, I don't see it happening.

edited 15th Oct '11 6:44:36 PM by storyyeller

hehehe, Let AJ kick RD square in the jaw and we'll see who's laughing then.

It's the wings. They're a natrual part of her body, so she had to restrict herself in order to be fair on AJ.

also, I think she should go all determinator and withstand a ridiculous amount of punishment. She could at least be the most durable pony of the mane cast

edited 15th Oct '11 6:46:36 PM by gingerninja666

But she violated the spirit of the competition, by using a secondary ability to make up for deficiencies in the actual ability being tested.

^ They're all pretty durable already, at least during slapstick moments.

edited 15th Oct '11 6:46:40 PM by storyyeller

Yup, that was cheating, true. but in any PRACTICAL scenario, RD has an inherant advantage over AJ because of her wings. It makes her infinitely more maneuverable.

She should be even MORE durable than that. I'm talking Out of the Inferno levels of toughness

edited 15th Oct '11 6:49:55 PM by gingerninja666

Considering the intended demographic of this show, I know Twilight Psycho didn't skewer that poor bird with her horn. Still, I don't see her horn anywhere in that shot. Maybe the bird and the nest are blocking it from view. Yeah, that's it. I'll rest easy now. *gulp*

Yeah. Applejack's really got the short end of the stick.

Though I'm sure Applejack would win at applebucking. Rainbow Dash could get all the apples down in seconds, but her method would also involve destroying the trees and buckets.

^ The nest was probably thick enough to cover most of it.

edited 15th Oct '11 6:50:09 PM by storyyeller

I was on Ponibooru and...well I came across this◊. The top image comes from this blog, posted a month ago.

I don't know which is scarier...

Earth Ponies in general have this problem.

It's especially egregious with AJ though because her defining character traits revolve around her being an athlete.

Pinkie at least has a character outside of her physical capabilities

A lot of the competitions were geared heavily towards Applejack to begin with, though. Like, lots of stuff given to raw, physical strenght. And hoof-wrestling or not, we know RD isn't as a strong as AJ.

So, what then. You're saying: "Fuck Applejack, "

please, please, please, please, please let her do something cool in season 2

edited 15th Oct '11 6:56:46 PM by gingerninja666

Well, at least AJ's the best cook in town.

Judging from that Reliability award, it seems to be implying that maybe AJ has a host of other skills that we haven't seen yet. Ones that would let her be helpful to ponies

edited 15th Oct '11 7:00:06 PM by gingerninja666

AJ's runs a farm, ergo she grows things. Like The Beets

edited 15th Oct '11 7:04:02 PM by WillKeaton

Don't worry. Like I said before, Applejack is awesome.

The pony is pretty damn awesome, too. *hic*

edited 15th Oct '11 7:19:09 PM by Sydxelia

I could imagine AJ being a tracker. She seems the type to be more in tune with nature (the flora, not the fauna that's Fluttershy's department)

No no, that's not what I'm saying at all. The competition was broken from the start - it emphasized one competitors skills over the others, making the other competitor feel like she needed to cheat in order to prevail. The main issue is, there's no real sense of balance. The two have extremely different skill sets - not just on a personal level, but racially. It's like holding a triathalon between a human and a cheeta - the cheeta's going to beat you on the running hands down, but it's got no chance against you on a bike. It's not a fair judge. I honestly don't think that there's any way to directly compare the races 1-1, because they all have radically different skill sets and physiology. Earth ponies are tanks, pegasi are fast and agile, and unicorns are highly dexterous. And each fails at it's counterparts skills.

That's the issue here - no matter how good one pony looks in an episode, it's hard to compare them to any pony but another of their creed. So while we can call fluttershy more graceful than RD, and Twilight more magically skilled that Rarity, what can we call AJ in comparison to Pinkie? She runs on Rule of Funny - if it were funny for her to out wrestle AJ, she could, even if it made no logical sense.

You're definitely right, though. What AJ needs is a nice good episode where she does something on her own - if nothing else, it would validate the lessons about her needing somepony else's help every now and again. She has to have a reason for all that pride, after all. Or at least an on-screen one, rather than the informed abilities we get in applebuck season.

Her character isn't wrapped up in her physical attributes. What are you talking about? If anything's the centerpoint of her character, it'd be her job, but there are more facets to her character than that.

A lot of the competitions were geared heavily towards Applejack to begin with, though. Like, lots of stuff given to raw, physical strenght. And hoof-wrestling or not, we know RD isn't as a strong as AJ.

But Rainbow Dash was challenging Applejack at her own abilities. Nopony questions whether Applejack is a faster flier than Rainbow Dash.

Well, like I said above - my issue with the competition wasn't RD's daftness for agreeing to it, so much as that it was broken, and I take professional issue with that.

And now I'm picturing an episode where an earth pony wants to learn to fly.

edited 15th Oct '11 7:11:10 PM by WillKeaton