@Classy
 

 
-Lumino

That’s why you don’t hang out with people you don’t enjoy being around. Friendship is ultimately selfish and greedy - relationships in general are.
 
You offer your time and self to others and become a part of their lives because they also give something in return that you appreciate. They are either witty, or have a view on the world that you share, or you have similar tastes in videogames - friendship is about selfish desires to spend time with someone you like and want to spend time with because you enjoy what they bring and enhance upon your life.
 
You don’t do it, on a healthy and constructive way, to those that you dislike. Being socially awkward and not managing to make friends easily like Twilight here is a different case than the one Applejack specifies. AJ sees the friendships Twilight makes as a contract of some sort - playing “pretend to be friends” with others for the sake of magical powers and to save the day, not for the sake of having actual friends.
 
However, she fails to see that Twilight is merely the kind of person that enjoys being around herself more often than with others. She is entirely comfortable spending time with no one else, and thus, has a difficult time starting friendships. However, by spending time with the other girls and getting to know them, she realizes that they bring something inherently missing from her loner life with their individual views and experiences. Twilight appreciates and genuinely makes friends with the others despite her initial dismissal of the idea, and that makes her grow.
 
AJ sees it all as just “business and usual”. She claims Twilight wants her to be her friend for the sake of the magic instead of actual friendship, claiming that this friendship is an act of convenience and nothing else. Her view on the matter is dirty, clinical and cynical, failing to see that life in general is about greed and attachments to things you deem important to you.
 
She has a point, but she also misses it entirely. Twilight also misses the point of it entirely. I wonder how it will all progress in the future.

Quick, Twilight, start kissing up to Apple Bloom! Making friends with someone who is of no obvious use to you might just bring Applejack around, and might even score bonus points with her broth-oh. Right. Crap.  
Well, I don’t especially enjoy this characterization of Applejack, I can easily see the Honest One becoming extremely jaded and cynical to the point of being a plot obstacle.

@RIG
 
Hey, you got like half a dozen legitimate comments. Better than nothing, yeah?
 
-Lumino

I saw 18 comments and i was expecting several users talking about the comic…not only two debating…i am sad.

@lasty
 
Do not use the misbehavior of others as an excuse for your own.
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
If things like this bother you, you might not want to read the comments section for the other pages of this series. All the “didn’t read lol” and “WTF is this animu crap” comments might make your head explode.
 
On second thought, please read them.

@lasty
 
So it wasn’t intended to be constructive? Good, now that we have confirmed that it was just you whining, we can get on with our lives. Good talk.
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
Technically, no, it wasn’t meant to be a critique. According to four dictionaries, a critique is meant to be detailed, carefully written and examine the good and bad aspects of something. I never presented what I wrote to be any of that. Hell, I so non-carefully wrote it that I had to self-reply to add a point.  
By your definition of it, I doubly didn’t intend for it to be a critique. More of a paragraph I wrote to amuse myself and maybe a couple other people. If you thought that pile of sarcastic drivel was meant to be harsh, concise, professional or helpful, well…  
 
Whoops.
 
If I’d wanted to give a critique, I would have written it on the artist’s DeviantArt page, since there’s a much better chance they would read it there. And it would have gone more like:  
“Two of Applejack’s defining traits are that she’s nearly always eager to lend a helping hoof with any sized problem, even to the point of exhaustion, and that she’s naturally friendly. Part of her second line ever was ‘We here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do like makin’ new friends!’. So, to see this series’ AJ do the opposite of both makes her feel like she’s meant to be someone else, especially when the others have many of their recognizable traits. She feels even less like the AJ we know because the rest of the characters can kind of pass for their show counterparts while only she got such a huge change. Honestly, it reminds me of when Chrysalis impersonated Cadance, but only physically.  
That AJ is different isn’t my biggest problem with this, I have two that are much bigger. First is that the different personality almost worked. If Twilight couldn’t convince AJ her story was true or if she’d had a stronger reason to turn her back on friendship than “people only want friends because it’s beneficial”, I wouldn’t have said a word against it. If anything, it could have made for interesting stories. But instead, she flat-out tells Twilight she believes that something terrible is coming and she still refuses to help because gain is bad or something. Which can be a bad thing, if they’re being manipulative, but even Applejack’s reasons not to be friends with the mane six don’t really paint them as trying to trick each other out of anything. A little needy and immature, with the right wording, but not scheming and greedy. Plus, AJ knows that what Twilight wants is help preventing a catastrophe. Not exactly “let’s be friends so I can play your PS4”. Not knowing that being needed is good sometimes doesn’t just feel un-Applejacklike, but like too weak a reason to put off the inevitable, which leads me to my second big problem.  
All signs point to AJ joining the team. The show, the movies, that Mauroz has done various pieces of the mane six/seven as we know them (and nice ones, at that). If this bit with AJ isn’t the wind-up to a huge curve-ball, a choice that could lead to problems later on, it’s just a delay of what we all know is coming. If it’s the latter, I won’t assume there’s no reason for it, but I’m interested to see what that reason is. Some shake-up to the FiM story is a good thing, I’m just not sure this one will do the best service to the plot.”
 
That would have been closer to a critique, as dictionaries and you define it.  
As a side-note, you say the point of critiques is to show the artist how they could improve. What about people who critique Shakespeare or Mozart or Monet? Nobody on Earth can help them improve, they’re all far too dead. Are all those critics wasting their time analyzing dead or retired artists?

@lasty
 
If you thought that pile of sarcastic drivel was critique, you probably need to work on your writing style a bit more. A critique is harsh, true, but it is also professional and concise.
 
The purpose of critique is to show the author ways they might improve, not to harp on their failures. If you honestly cannot see the difference, then you have no business offering it.
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
It happens to the best of us, apparently.

@lasty
 
It’s OK, you confused ‘critique’ with ‘whining’. I know it can be difficult to differentiate between the two for some people.
 
-Lumino

@LuminoZero  
No, you’re right, it’s completely perfect. I don’t know what came over me.

@lasty
 
If you are done, the door is over there. Please make sure to filter the comic on your way out.
 
-Lumino

Whoops! Applejack’s catchphrase was actually…  
@lasty  

 
My mistake.

Ah, yes, a reference to Applejack’s well-known unfriendliness and never-say-try attitude in the face of adversity. Why, I’ve never seen anything so Applejack as this! You know, I’m reminded of the signature phrase our favorite apple-related mare uses whenever there’s danger about. Say it with me, everyone: “Even though I believe and understand that countless lives are in danger, I’m not going to make even a half-assed attempt to help save them because friendship is beneficial. Screw you, Equestria, I’m going home to curl up and die.”  
That’s our Applejack!

Friendship is many things…
 
But the one thing it isn’t, is logical. I’d bet money that will be what finally turns Applejack around. Applejack is applying logic to emotion, and emotions have this bad habit of acting completely contrary to established logic.
 
-Lumino

A gilded cage, no matter how pretty, is just a prison, and locking something just to keep its beauty for yourself is never justified. Looks like gilda is going to learn that the hard way.

You don’t suppose this is gonna lead to Midnight Sparkle, do you? With Applejack telling Twilight Friendship is a lie?

wow

Friendship is complicated sometimes. It’s not all cut and dry “X has joined your party.”

Mm, interesting twist with Applejack. I like the color in Rainbow’s relationship with Gilda, and the point AJ makes about Twilight and her fellow bearers is worth making. Excellent comic all around.
 
(Minor point: “Don’t distend”? Should that be “Don’t resist”?)

Well, We’re boned.
 
Off to gain the Hoy Gra- er, Goblet of Griffonstone, yeah that.