• Jim Miller said S5E13 is one of his favorites of this season this is anticipated to be the Luna nightmare/Solar Flare episode in both his direction and how it came out.  
• Slenderpony from “Pinkie Apple Pie” was not any of their idea, and the animator that included it got a “stern talking to”.  
• They addressed Derpy as Derpy, but they were caution to talk anything about ep 100/S5E9 (this was just a few hours after the first trailers came out so they recognized not everyone had a chance to see them).  
• They are told to product place toys, and they do their best to make them seem non-obvious in the story (eg the helicopter in Testing Testing)  
• They were both hesistent about EQG about the same reaction the fandom had when it was announced.
   
  But any other spoilers or teases, they did not say, beyond that they love our appreciation for their work and it makes it feel like they are doing this right.

• Season stories are determined and written out by Meghan, MA Larson, and the other freelance writers. DHX has some input in terms of animation complexity but rarely factor in here. Obviously scripts here are checked by Hasbro before DHX gets the final script.  
• At DHX, they start getting the VAs to do their lines and have Daniel provide the music. Simultaneously, the storyboardists start to plan out the direction, which they finalizing on timing with the VA and song recordings.  
• It goes to layout, which is where a lot of what the fandom picks up in is added in. These people basically select the background and foreground scenery, creating the new backgrounds as necessary (like for Griffonstone), place the scripted characters in shot per the storyboard, and then add in background characters as required by the storyboardists, who unlikely have said anything specifically about which BG pony should be used in their notes. Everything is set to key frames timed to the VA recordings and major songs here. A rough cut of layout is sent to Hasbro to approve before going off to Top Draw in Asia.  
• Top Draw does their thing, ending up with a large detailed Flash animation file. Some initial DHX review is done here and some back and forth to make sure the base animation is done right.  
• It goes back to DHX who use After Effects to add light, shadows, magic auras, and other details that that program is better suited for. They also give that to Will Anderson to score the bg music and to the sound guys to add in any additional sounds.  
• They then review the whole episode, trim out to get to 22.5 minutes, and try to catch for small errors (this is where they may miss the one-frame glitches). That gets sent to Hasbro for final approval.
   
  So while the major story elements are set by the writing staff and Hasbro, some of what DHX does has entered “our” collective canon which they subsequently reflect into the show to canonize it further. Derpy, obviously, which they know was something left over in layout or animation but felt no one would pick up on, is the prime example; Lyra and Bon-Bon as well. But to the situation of Discord x Celestia, while this was not addressed directly, it could easily have been a scene set in S4E26 by the storyboardists or layout needed to fill time on the end of Daniel’s song and not something necessarily written by Meghan.

1. THESE are the people whose opinion MAY influence the story in MLP FiM:  
   A)Headwriter  
   B)Directors  
   C)Hasbro executives and rest of the producers (whatever position Mike Vogel have right now)  
   D)Larson as the only exception from writing staff since he and Meghan form an old team and he serve as her right hand man and editor
    
   In lesser way and form (indirect)
    
   a)Overall rest of the writers suggest things that are mostly approved by the people above(even Larson’s ideas) but their preferences may still give an idea about shipping. Like AKR may have given an idea to match Pinkie with Cheese if the headwriter will like that idea based on her episode or if Hasbro execs want to bring Wierd Al back.  
   b)Ideas given by licensed comicbook writers, book writers and events in Equestria Girls are approved by the show staff and Hasbro and may also influence their take on handling characters in the future if they didn’t thought about it earlier. It serve as reading fanfics to them but since ideas belong to intelectual property of Hasbro, they don’t have to wory about copyrights.
    
   2)THESE are people whose opinion DON”T MATTER  

• Voice actors  
• Storyboard artists  
• Animators  
• Discovery Channel employers  
• Fandom related people (journalists, reviewers, artists etc.)  
• Fans
   
  Basically people whose job is to “write” the story can influence it. Those people who don’t, can’t do anything. And writers won’t listen to other group demands and advise or they would be accused of “pandering” or “stealing ideas”. Writers and Directors create the story and dynamic of the movie. Not actors or camera operators.
   
   
  @Red Cedar  
  That would be terrible idea. It’s the basic example of pandering that would influence the storyline and characters. Inside jokes and memes should stay in the fandom. Jan Animation should not influence Sweetiebelle development and Puffymixer fanbase should not influence Chrysalis character. Same with Dislestia shipping group. Especially since is all a joke for the voice actors.

I will just leave this here…