What type of society is Equestria?

>>29066240
>a lot of the groupings of ponies in the standard crowd actually make some sense there
That's s neat detail I never noticed.

>>29066240
A perfect one

>>29066240
A pony society.

>>29066240
Oligarchy

>>29066240
A uterocracy ruled by a vagynasty.

>>29066240
A monarchy that can actually be trusted not to fuck shit up. But I guess that's what happens when humans aren't involved with society, and wise, immortal, benevolent horse-goddesses are.

>>29066240
Federal Oligarchy: a small number of Ponies rule at different tiers, with the highest tier holding authority over all lower tiers.

>>29066386
*That's what happens when idealistic, impossibly infallible entities rule over a balanced, largely flawless fantasy world with limitless resources unless a story temporarily calls for it

>>29066357
>>29066396
im gonna have go with these two anons, but will add that the second role contains foreign dignitaries who are not associated directly with Equestria

Matriarchy

...in Faust's vision

Peaceful authoritarian xenophile, no fanatic traits

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>>29066240
Why is Cherry Jubilee in the VIP box?

>>29066240
It is a pseudo-monarchy where in the depths of the relationships and market the socialism rules regardless of filthy imperialism

Man, Roid Rage's mom is HUGE

>>29066240
It's a retro-futuristic vaporwave utopy based on plutocracy of the 80s

obvious oligarchy

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>>29066624
He who controls the cherries holds the power.

>>29066240
A society with enough ingrained cooperation that they can all sit equal distance apart despite there being not pre-set seats

Its a corporatist dictatorship

>>29066386
The moment that you trust the government is the moment that they control you

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>>29066854
Butt grooves

>>29066818
The cherries must flow.

>>29066259
well considering how much shit they used to get over there lazy crowds it makes sense they would go the extra mile

I would say a mix and mash of Monarchy and Representative Democracy. Since the princesses are immortal, and benevolent it makes sense their rule would last so long. And mayor mare is cannon, and mayors are elected. inb4 mayors can be selected by the by glorious overlords. I have no rebuttal. And these anons >>29066357 >>29066396 still make good points. I just think a Monarchy/Rep. Dem. makes sense, show wise.

>>29066259
What really bothers me is that every pony have the same distance to one another, no one is sitting closer or leaning on one another or chatting. It looks unnatural. Like none of them is aware of the rest.

>>29066987
>And mayor mare is cannon, and mayors are elected
Well there is the whole predestination thing as well that she was destined to fulfil a bureaucratic aptitude

>>29066240
monarchy duh

>>29066997
Wanna know what bugs me?
Look at the geriatrics section on the right hand side - all standing at a creepy angle

>>29066624
cherries are fucking expensive in equestrias economy
she is likely loaded

>>29067008
Also there seems to be two cherilees

To everyone saying monarchy, doesn't Luna hold equal or near-equal power?

If she does, it's a diarchy, but you could certainly argue Luna is still just Celestia's bitch despite her temper-tantrum 1000 years ago.

I think mayor is an appointed, mostly ceremonial position, much like governor-general.

I do think representatives are elected. Judges are appointed. (Recall the Smile song.)

Equestria is a unitary government, however, not federal. There's basically no local bureaucracy in Ponyville, despite it being a reasonably-sized town. Mayor Mare is there to look dignified and ensure important things happen; rep pony acts as feedback to Canterlot; judge pony acts if somepony gets out of line.

Celestia (and Luna on return) have ponies who then run the central bureaucracy for them according to their directives.

Basically like China, except horse-empresses actually are immortal.

There's two cheerilees

You fell for the classic blunder op
Never start a thread with a picture more interesting then your subject

>>29067126
Maybe teachers in equestria are like nurses and police officers in pokemon.

>>29066240
Is that Biceps Mom?

Anyone have more screenshots of ponies in crowds like the OP?
I want to see if there are any patterns.

>>29067015
she does have a sister

>>29067185
>mom
looks more like grandma
but didn't we his "sister" in the buck ball ep?

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>>29066956
>mfw tripping balls on cherries so hard you see time distort before you to reveal The Golden Path

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Every single one of you fuckers are focusing on the wrong thing. "Equestria" isn't like a modern nation-state that has a defined political structure, it's a land area that doesn't have any one kind of society.

Europeans in the middle ages divided their countries into a series of titles tied to plots of land, each one constituting a "realm" where the count (or duke or king or whatever) held whatever powers were defined for him through tradition or some legal code. In Equestria, realms seem to be tied to abstracts instead of land. There's no "Principality of Equestria", but there's a Principality of the Day and a Principality of the Night. Celestia has jurisdiction over everything during the day, and Luna everything during the night. It's technically never an oligarchy as there's only one princess in charge at the same time (and no, Cadence and Twilight do NOT count).

The question that needs to be asked is what kind of society is the day and the night? It'd be very unwieldy to have different laws apply depending on the time of day, so it's safe to assume they are mostly the same, especially since Celestia was de facto the ruler of the night for a thousand years. Seeing as Celestia is so beloved and seemingly perfect, it's downright ridiculous to think their rule has any democratic elements or any separation of powers, since those things only came about IRL because there was a need for them. At most there's some delegation to split the workload, but in the end there are no legal checks and balances on Celestia and Luna.

So "Equestria" every 12 hours changes monarchies, both of which are absolute but benevolent dictatorships.

All of this is of course just my (very educated and logical) headcanon that could be overturned by a Celestia episode...

>>29067303
Why would a Celestia episode feature politics?

>>29067310
Why would a Celestia episode feature Celestia?

>>29066240
constitutional Monarchy.

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>>29067225

I actually pay attention to that, the "patterns" as they are can be roughly summarized as:
S1: small crowds composed of very few ponies, often copied and reused.
S2-S3: larger crowds with more variety compared to S1, but still lacking if you take a closer look.

Here's a typical crowd scene from the rear-end of S2, quite a few ponies but if you pause and take a closer look you'll see that for example the "purple tube mane" mare has been copied 4 times on the left and 6 times on the right. It's also worth pointing out the skewed sex-distribution, typically for this period you'll see around 70% mares to 30% stallions. This even led to grimderp headcanons early on that the stallions were all off fighting in a war somewhere, or the equally retarded idea that every stallion has a harem of mares.

>>29067332
>equally retarded idea

>he doesn't want to live in a world where there are two mares for every stallion

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>>29066240
sauce on this qt

>>29066240
I just noticed there was a silver shill selling popcorns

>>29067361
>"The goyim know. Activate it."

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>>29067225
>>29067332

Around S4 is in my opinion where the show hits it's peak, both when it comes to crowd scenes and the amount of detail they put into the animation in general (least amounts of ponies in human poses, interesting pony-specific animation solutions, etc.)

By this time, the sex distribution has been fixed, crowds are now almost universally very near a 50/50 split between mares and stallions if it makes sense that they'd be, this is ESPECIALLY true for any crowd scene where there's an implication of power involved, like the delegates in that godawful Spike episode. Princess Spike maybe? No doubt this is done for political correctness reasons.

S5 and S6 continues among the same lines, but in my opinion take it a bit too far. Many times, especially when dealing with non-Ponyville locations, accessories and unusual designs seem to be slapped on almost haphazardly, like this example from mid S5, the shirt, the caps, the weird stubble-thing... The ponies are more unique and individual, but they're not as easy on the eye any more.

>>29067361
it's interesting that the VA is known for Goku and Mr Cakes is known for Vegeta
I would love to see those two interact and not get along for no reason, or like what they did in the Maverick with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiDlQgW1wO0

>>29067369

How does one appreciate beauty in a world without ugly?

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>>29067225
>>29067369

The pony-race-ratio also follows a similar evolution.

S1 it's all fairly limited to what models they have, S2-S3 starts showing signs of improvement, while newer seasons seem to almost follow a checklist a lot of the time.

Ponyville is about 50-70% Earth pony with the rest being an even spread of Pegasi and Unicorn, one of the few older locations that's been fairly consistent since S1.
Cloudsdale is as you'd expect 95+% pegasi, the rest are either cloudwalking or animation errors.
Canterlot used to be 50% pegasi, 25% unicorn, 25% earth, but this was probably due to lack of models and/or time, as it doesn't make an awful lot of sense, after maybe S3 it's very close to an even 33/33/33% spread between the three major races.
Manehattan is Earth-pony dominated, they account for maybe 50% of the population. You can sort of get a glimpse of it in >>29067369

The Royal Guard used to lack earth ponies, with the vast majority of guards being either unicorns or pegasi, there's maybe three earth pony guards in total throughout S1 and S3. They were all also either grey or white.
S4 has the infamous Flash Sentry cameo, the first brown guard, as well as a first "crystal guard", S5 adds even more colors, and S6 as it happens doesn't have any guards (that I can recall at least)
It's interesting to note that this correlates well time-wise with the adjustments" made to the civilian crowds to even out their sex-distribution - the guards are also becoming more diverse and aren't as easily mistaken for signs of "white supremacy" any more.

>>29067369
that tourist pony has been touring 4+ years

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>>29067436

Real Life is ugly enough for both worlds.

You can probably attribute the increased variety to the higher availability of animation assets over time. I'd imagine they aren't allotted a ton of time to work on background ponies.

>>29067487

That is not a sufficient excuse. You still need a few in-world eyesores.

That said, if I may make my own counter-argument: the scene in >>29067369 isn't so much "ugly" as it is "bad". It does have the feeling of trying too hard to be random. I can tell that it's designed and not evolved, because the random noise in a natural population is much more repetitive than people feel it should be.

>>29067528
it also helped that the fandom started taking notice of BG pones, giving them personalities, so the designers and animators had to step up their game

seriously, this fandom is a fucking anomaly
no fandom has ever been able to KEEP a show going after it's intended end
nor have they ever had such an influence on the staff, and final product (episodes) such as new bg pones everywhere
most fandoms are just there to appreciate the content the creators make, or show up AFTER the show has ended, such as the original StarTrek, and Firefly

maybe it's our collective autism, but never has there been a fandom that actually creates the amount (sfw and nsfw) content that we have done

it's just so fucking amazing, and I'm proud to be part of it

>>29067357
plz respond

>>29066240

Hugciety

>>29067574
Never underestimate the power of unlimited autism

>>29067574

Characters in the background are essential for building a world. You and the approximately 150 people you know well at any one point in time can't support an entire world, or else it's a minuscule world, or it's a desolate world.

>>29067712
true, but my point was that if it wasn't for the fandom's autism with bg ponies, we'd still be seeing the same 6-10 bg ponies copy and pasted everywhere like they did in the first two seasons of the show
it made them realise that they should put more effort into the bg stuff because people who watch the show notice the little details
this is why we see little stories play out throughout the show with bg ponies
Lyra and Bon Bon are one
another is the barking pony (screwball?)
she had gotten better and while a nurse was visiting her, Winona in the foreground barked, causing the nurse to think it was screwball relapsing (this happened in JFSK)

it's the little details like that that makes the world feel bigger
I like seeing that kind of shit in the show, it makes it feel more alive, than just having them stand there like first year extras in a stage play (doing nothing)
it's those details that you don't notice consciously, but your subconscious picks up on right away

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>>29067802
>another is the barking pony (screwball?)
Screwloose by fan-name, Screwy by merchandize, unnamed in the show. I absolutely adore her little sequence with the nurse and Winona barking.

Screwball is the purplish pink one that's seemingly connected to Discord. She's actually another good example of what you're talking about, she first appears in S2's Return of Harmony and reappears in the Discord-timeline during the Cutie Re-Mark.

>>29067301
I choked on my breakfast reading that. Thanks for almost killing me from laughter

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a sexy one

>>29066240
Where the fuck is Prince Shining Armour? Is he not as high-level as Blueblood, or is his function purely with the military?

>>29066240
Fictional.

>>29068703

IIRC he's busy overseeing something for the games, remember, he's doing sports as well.

>>29068728
oh yeah, thanks anon

>>29068703
they never gave him the title of Prince

>>29066240
I just saw Bulk's mom in the stands.
Boss pone has boss mom.

>>29068728
What? When did that happen?

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>>29066278
>supervillains taking over multiple times a year
>a perfect society

>>29067457
I'm fairly certain the colors of the guard were just indication of rank or rank group. When the Princesses went missing in that one episode with the vines, the two guards were both grey when they stated they were officers. Just my crap headcanon tho.

>>29066240
I see two cheerilee's

>>29067332
not really non topic here, but why is it at Cadance's wedding are all the bridesmaids twilight's friends and not her own. Candance shouldn't even really know about them, twilight meet them long after Cadance stopped babysitting. Does Cadance have no friends?

>>29071670
They got killed and replaced by changlings.

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>>29070116

Games Ponies Play. I don't specifically remember whether or where he is during Equestria Games, but it'd be fair to assume he's doing something sports-related rather than ceremony-related.

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>>29070526

Wut?

You're fairly certain, and then you proceed to admit it's just your crappy headcanon? What does your headcanon even mean?

Besides, we know for an absolute fact there's no distinction between white and grey guards, and they're used interchangeably as part of the same formation.

>>29071670

I'd say it's very much on topic, and shows the restraints they were working with under S1 and S2.

With limited time and budget funneled for background ponies, it makes a lot of sense to use ponies we know as bridesmaids, even if it doesn't make an awful lot of sense seen from in-universe. Cadance's friends are very unlikely to ever be relevant for more than one hypothetical episode at most.

>>29073052

Why is /mlp/ so spoiled?

>>29070475
>And no one ever dies

Checkm8 b8

>>29073339
Years of good content but it just never fills the hole in their chest.

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>>29073369
I sunk your battleship
King me

>>29073394

It's like they don't even process the things the cute ponies are saying.

>>29073722
If they did, then this place would be like heaven on earth.
Minus the religion and with more poners.