I love you Fluttershy. She’s making a pose what looks like she’s saying “Pick me up”picks up Fluttershy and pets her

@Background Pony  
Implying any mane 6 pony doesn’t have them. True though, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy tend to have more of them.

@Alel  
>Implying that Fluttershy fans aren’t overprotective and obsessed too.

@Background Pony  
Rainbow Dash fans can be too obsessed and over-protective, and unable to think past her. Another reason I’m glad Fluttershy won is because reaction-wise it was the less annoying result.
 
TMMDW is one of the very few episodes from the second season where I find Rainbow Dash likable. Other episodes have her treating animals like crap; terrorizing the patients in a hospital, trying to steal from said hospital, making doctors waste time chassing her and making a mental patient escape, all without punishment; leaving two of her friends abandoned on a desert for the sake of a gag; or being a complete hypocrite and violent towards the CMC… she still makes mistakes like losing focus in TMMDW, but there it’s undestandable.
 
The others weren’t being hypocrital or “passive-agressive” (Another term that is losing it’s meaning because of people copying and pasting it), there is no comparison between how they dealt with being heroes and Rainbow Dash; you have to really force yourself to think that. It wasn’t the “what”, but the “how”.

@Background Pony  

 
Yeah, but this is a Merriwether Williams episode, and behaving reasonably is not something she feels the ponies should do.
 

 
These statements are factually incorrect. First, they did NOT do the same thing as Rainbow Dash. They were portraying a silent hero who never tried to win glory or praise. Rather, Mare Do Well was a persona who merely let others give her accolades if they would, but for whom saving ponies was the goal. Dash, by contrast, became obsessed with her vainglory.
 
As to being passive-aggressive, they never set out to humiliate her or “make her feel awful about herself”. She did that on her own. They never got in her way, or put her down, or anything like that, they just got the job done. Dash even allowed someone to be nearly killed, just so she could sign a few more autographs. That’s on her entirely. But of course, that’s one of those reasons I pick on Williams a bit myself. She managed to slightly damage my enjoyment of the show by portraying the mane 6 in increasingly rude/vain/cruel/unreasonable ways, consistently.
 
Anyway, that’s my two cents on MMDW.

@FamusJamus  
My main beef with that episode is it’s rather hypocritical moral. “Don’t brag” The other mane ponies get mad at Rainbow for letting the entire town’s praise get to her head (that would probably go to anyone’s head though.) so, they decide to do the exact same thing as Rainbow and in the end they make HER apologize for it. Rainbow is a lot of bronies’ favorite character and that episode was brutal and overly vindictive. Couldn’t the other 5 have just talked to Rainbow and just solved the problem easily? No. They chose to be passive agressive about it and make her feel awful about herself. That’s pretty messed up if you ask me.

@K_A  
One quibble: From what I can see, there’s no sign in “Hurricane Fluttershy” that Fluttershy outdid anyone, much less everyone. At the climax, the team needed just 5 more wingpower in order to get the tornado going, and there’s nothing in the episode to indicate she provided more than that. (Unless you want to bring up Rainbow Dash’s statement about her being the “number one flyer”, though that seems more of an expression of gratitude for someone who came through at the last moment; I find it hard to believe Dash could have determined Fluttershy’s wingpower while they were both in the middle of creating a tornado with a few dozen other pegasi.)
 
I do think you bring up a good point about Fluttershy getting off lightly for some pretty bad behavior, though I don’t think it’s all quite as bad as you do. (Her threat in “Magic Duel” was an unspecified “so help me”, and I think her behavior in “Keep Calm and Flutter On” was justifiable (she might’ve been able to tell her friends earlier that she wasn’t believing Discord 100%, but her friends should have trusted her more too).) Still, that’s an understandable difference of opinion.

@K_A  
I’ll deal with the rest of this later ‘cause I got work at 6 am, but
 
“If I really wanted to be difficult, I’d bring up the unrealism of HF in Fluttershy not only doing well but far outdoing everyone just because she really tried. Given that she is a pegasus whose schtick is having talents outside of flying, it felt like a slippery slope toward unbalance, but by itself wasn’t an issue until it’s piled up on everything else.”
 
She didn’t “far outdo” the others did she? From what I remember she still came up short of average, but her help was in getting then the extra 5 wing power or whatever they were short of (with the other ms doing like 11’s or something).
 
Other than that, it seems like you took quite a few site gags as serious plot points and judged a character based on them. That’s not a totally fair assessment or dismissal of all you thoughtfully laid out there, like I said, I’ll have to get to it later.

@K_A  
I will agree that Flutterage is an aspect of her that should used sparingly instead of becoming her most outstanding point of characterization.
 
Kindness that is easily pissed off is not kindness at all.

@rogerSnow  

 
To start, if say Rainbow Dash threatened Twilight or did half the stuff in PYHD, she would have gotten much worse than Fluttershy did. One core aspect of being a Mary Sue is that no matter what, the character is universally liked by everyone. In all her episodes, she is consistently glorified and presented as having “cutesy” flaws if any.
 
Let’s take one more visit to PYHD. Probably the biggest flaw I have with it is that she clearly told Rarity and Pinkie Pie that they were not even worth her time or breath, yet even then those two (who would otherwise be heroic in forgiving her) shifted the entire blame to Iron Will, who was at worst guilty of giving bad advice for money. Fluttershy came to her own by standing up for herself and achieving balance, but she didn’t own up to all the damage she caused other than I think saying sorry to her “friends.” (You could argue they just lacked the time to cover all the angles, but that would then become a problem of pacing: the Fluttershy-going-really-crazy act was seriously overdone and–for me at least–was simply unfunny.)
 
Instead of having her make conscientious efforts to redeem herself, Fluttershy was absolved by shifting the blame over to Iron Will. Thus, her innocence after (cartoonishly) assaulting a dude with a camera is maintained. She enjoys a complete return to innocence and has since gone psycho on a whim without any blame. No other character can do this. When Twilight Sparkle went crazy, she had to face her mentor in shame. When Applejack went crazy, she had to swallow her pride. When Rainbow Dash went crazy… yeah, you get the idea. I’m saying there has been a double standard at play that allows Fluttershy to be consistently glorified in all her episodes. A double standard in favor of elevating a character is a hallmark of a Mary Sue. Bear in mind I said borderline for a reason.
 
(If I really wanted to be difficult, I’d bring up the unrealism of HF in Fluttershy not only doing well but far outdoing everyone just because she really tried. Given that she is a pegasus whose schtick is having talents outside of flying, it felt like a slippery slope toward unbalance, but by itself wasn’t an issue until it’s piled up on everything else.)
 

 
I’ll be nice here and assume you skimmed past the point when I brought up an example from Magic Duel.
 
Despite being more of an “important” episode than some claim, since it was meant to kickstart Fluttershy’s character development, I considered PYHD a weak episode but was able to look past it. It was actually the aforementioned Magic Duel scene that I realized the Flutterrage thing was not only sticking but was becoming a serious characterization problem. She threatened to hurt one of her allegedly close friends as a joke. If she learned ANYTHING from PYHD, it’s that threatening your own friends to be assertive is NOT OK. She could have stepped up and asked Twilight to be careful or consider another act, but no. If that was not out of character for her, then it should be. There were other freak-out moments, too, of course, but I won’t harp on them.
 
My general beef with Fluttershy is that she does not seem to like her friends very much. Let me look past those obvious scenes and examine KCaFO. Now, KCaFO was indeed a step in the right direction, and I have the least beef with that among my complaint-prone Fluttershy eps. But the entire time she acted quite irately toward her friends, despite her intentions being unclear (and at the climax an all-out gamble). Most poignantly, she berated Rainbow and the rest right after they were obviously being taunted by Discord, and then berated them again for not realizing her intent. It was implied from her friends’ reactions that they were underestimating her steadfastness and intelligence, yet they were not being unreasonable in wanting to give her help–and it was not until they stepped in that Fluttershy made the last-minute plan that won Discord over. It was trying to make her the “underestimated hero,” but she came off passive-aggressively and ultimately seemed more reckless than heroically risk-taking.
 
The reason I am this judgmental about this is because Fluttershy had always been a sincerely kind character one could respect as a role model. There was no coating of irony to her demeanor. There was exaggeration and character humor, sure, but the writers did not rush to make her a “silent/sweet but deadly” cliche like a lot of shows do and, even with these flaws, has made a point of legitimately developing her character. Part of what drove me to this show was how characters had depth to them beyond typical archetypes, which is in vein of encouraging girls (and by extension everyone) to be true to themselves beyond a social role or expectation. I was disappointed after PYHD and her successive freak-out moments. I agree with the premise of her character development and liked the hints S1 threw, but the execution has had serious flaws in it. Fluttershy receives so much praise for developing as a character yet is a douche toward her friends too often. There is enough praise for jerks in this world.
 
Let me say again that no matter how cynically I write, I do not ever want to discourage or even influence the writers. I trust and respect their talents regardless of my complaints.
 
@Background Pony  

 
Really? I never knew Larson said that. I’ll lay off again, then, since the writers are indeed paying attention to how they’re writing her character. And frankly, it also gives me ammo whenever someone implies she was well written in that episode.

@Background Pony  
That comparison is too superficial. One episode has Discord trying to make her friends look bad by pointing at flaws she has no problem with, while the other has her being upset about the treatement she IS receiving from others (that aren’t even her friends), looking for help, and being applauded and cheered by a multitude of ponies for being rude towards a goat, thus deciding to solve all her problem that way, and it escalates from there.
 
And no, she isn’t cruel, that’s why she feels so bad when she realizes what she has been doing. Instead of being too perfect and pure to be affected by negative emotions, the episode shows that she COULD be cruel, but that’s not how she wants to be. She is an actual character because of that.

@Background Pony  
From Lauren Faust’s FAQ:  

So she was there for “Fluttershy goes from doormat to uberbitch before learning the proper balance”, at least, and didn’t shoot it down.

@Background Pony  
*in the realization, not is

@Background Pony  
The extent to which Fullerton was directly involved is the realization of the story on-screen is uncertain, but yes, it’s partly her fault and Renzetti’s as well. Faust had almost no involvement outside of an advisory position for most of season 2, so I don’t know where you got your info that she approved it. Not that it matters.
 
@rogerSnow  
I dislike MMC as well, and I’m certainly not hesitant to say so. As for Williams, what’s wrong with critiquing her ability to stay true to earlier character depictions? It’s not like I want to burn her house down, I just hink she does a poor job.
 
@Alel  
A) Fluttershy isn’t stupid.  
B) She isn’t cruel.
 
She’s shown herself to be a responsible person, so the idea that in one afternoon she could be trained to go from the nicest pony in Pony ville to the meanest, I just don’t buy it. In Return of Harmony, we see that her lack of guile is actually why Discord’s trickery didn’t work on her. Hence, out of character. Don’t insult people just because you didn’t understand the argument.

@rogerSnow  
I still don’t know what all the hubbub was about TMMDW.

@Background Pony  
Fluttershy wasn’t out of character in PYHD, she was being a doormat by doind what Iron Will told her to do. Just like Pinkie Pie and Rarity’ methods at the market, being a bully didn’t work for Fluttershy. At the end, when she confronts Iron Will, she is finally being herself.
 
Really, the term “out of character” has lost any meaning at this point. It’s just something fans throw to sound smart and make their opinions (and bias) seem like more than that.

@K_A
 
>>In her current state, she is borderline Mary Sue.
 
Wow. That has got to be the most abused term in this fandom. By what possible stretch of the imagination could she possibly be considered a Mary Sue?
 
And really? She’s a bitch in an episode (and in the end feels bad about it) so therefore she’s unlikeable?
 
@Background Pony
 
Oh god with the Merriwether hate wagon. The episode was not that bad. Out of character? Well gee, if only that very fact was acknowledged in universe and a central plot point of that episode with a plausible cause behind it. I guess it IS pretty unrealistic, I mean it’s not like people irl ever try new things and do things “out of character” for them…
 
I’m not the kind of person to pick favorites, and I don’t understand how you could pick a favorite or best. I mean, I like the part of the fandom where that’s done sorta jokingly and in good fun. The thing that’s frustrating to me is how damn judgmental people are. I got in this fandom partly to get away from that and because the show seemed to delve into understanding before hating. I know these are fictional characters, I’m not worried about their non-feelings. The thing I don’t like is the general mindset, and I know it carries over from this fiction to real life because I see it all of the time. Hell, I see it right in this fandom regarding Merriwether; “boo, she should lose her job, she’s a TERRIBLE writer, those episodes fucking sucked and ruined everything!”
 
I like how twilicorn drama will get groans and people telling you to shut up, but hating a writer for what are, at absolute worst, weaker episodes that are only 23 minutes and easily ignorable while containing no essential story arcs, has slipped it’s way into core fandom culture and is a-okay. That’s good, exactly the kind of toxic mindset we need.

@Background Pony  
Charlotte Fullerton was credited with the story; does she go on the list too? What about Rob Renzetti, who approved the story as aired, and Lauren Faust, who approved the concept (at least)?

@K_A  
First of all, PYHD can go die in a fire. Merriwether Williams is forever on my terrible writer list for having come up with that miserable abomination. And as for Magic Duel, Larson basically admitted he did a poor job portraying Fluttershy there. I chalk those both up to being annoyingly out of character, and pretty much leave it at that. Let’s not forget that just about any time Williams is involved, the characters tend to seem OOC.
 
KCaFO was much truer to her original S1 personality. Hopefully, they will generall keep to that kind of portrayal moving forward.

@Background Pony  
If this ever happened, I would revert it every time it was set until I got thrown off the site team.
 
I’m not kidding.

I tell people I essentially like the Mane 6 equally, and I really would like to think I do. But as I’ve said in the past, Fluttershy strikes a bad chord with me after PYHD, to the point of being my bête noire in regard to MLP. In spite of doing things such as physically threatening Twilight, Fluttershy is consistently praised in-universe and out-of-universe and encouraged in her abrasive behavior by fandom memes. Even the writers say she has been developed into a strong, sophisticated character. I don’t see it. I just don’t see it at all. In her current state, she is borderline Mary Sue.
 
People get annoyed when this possibility is brought up, but I don’t want to see a fan-nodding episode wantonly glorifying her. KCaFO already was close enough to that role.
 
But I won’t start shit. If this result doesn’t lead to any “special” episode, I suppose I can deal with it. Come S5 or even late S4, however, if I see her become an alicorn or something, I will go Doom Paul on you people.

I for one am actually pretty impressed at how well behaved Derpibooru has been. I think a lot of people actually expected more to happen on this site than others. But thats just my perspective.  
I did not actually vote in the Fan Favorite Poll, because as it turns out, I actually like the entire mane six/seven if you count Spike.  
I would actually like to see The Hub run a poll like this every year, maybe just after a season has finished airing, and run it to satire a presidential election like this. It was pretty funny.

@fastbreak333  
I know I meant ANYWHERE. That somewhere there’s a big shitstorm over THIS is pretty crazy.

@rogerSnow  
The drama’s not here though. It’s mostly at /mlp/ if you want to find it.