There’ve been a few leaks and early episode releases going on in recent history, and when Equestria Daily reports on them, they often like to use this one screencap from Applejack’s “Day” Off, and it caused me to develop this sort-of headcanon that Applejack’s been hard at work these past couple of seasons trying to fix the pipes that keep breaking in Hasbro’s content stream, with increasing frustration as new issues keep popping up. Poor Applejack. :(

Back in my early days in the fandom, I had no problem checking out early releases when something managed to slip through the cracks. It didn’t happen often, and because I love the show so much, I took what I could get regarding what came next. That started to change a bit in season 6, and ESPECIALLY during season 7. Leaks, accidental releases, and accelerated airings in other countries just became so commonplace that it wasn’t any fun anymore when it happened. It kinda turned me off from the whole “seeing new pony content as soon as possible” thing in general, to the point that I couldn’t even be bothered to read the synopses for upcoming episodes anymore.

Now I just watch new episodes when they come out on Discovery Family without knowing anything about them ahead of time, which is fun in its own right, though I do kinda miss the early days when there was more wonder and charm around the whole thing. The pipes seem to be fixed right now (hopefully), so here’s hoping we don’t have any more major issues like this going forward.