*Emerges from ancient volcano fanfic lair to post about horse episode where the driving conflict is a love triangle*
Fizzbuzz wrote:Not really. In this episode it was like:
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Rarity --------> Trenderhoof ----------> Appplejack
Whereas a love triangle would be:
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Trenderhoof
^ ^
/ \
/ \
/ \
Rarity Applejack
A>B>C and A>B<C
are the two basic types of love triangles. This one is based on A wanting B's attention while B likes C, while A>B<C is, like, Rarity and Applejack both compete for Twilight's affection (while she resolves it by reading anthropology textbooks until she proclaims her love for Zecora, who up to this point had not been even mentioned in the story)*. There's a lot of variations, like A>B>C>A or D swoops in to resolve it or A>B><C (poor jilted A) but they mostly boil down to competing for B. Except in this episode where C didn't give a shit and B is kind of a shallow hipster.
Anyway, I'm posting before Sunday afternoon so clearly I had to see this one soon. I didn't
dread it, because last month was an amazing Rarity episode and last week was amazing and so was the week before that, and yet I didn't
anticipate it, because, well, I've seen love triangles done poorly a million fucking times.** It's more apt to say I
waited for it and felt I had to get it out of the way or lose my fucking mind imagining dumber and dumber outcomes like this isn't by the crew that gave me the previous two amazing goddamn episodes.
And it was a lot better than I hoped, actually. Tabitha went crazy with voice acting, and that's always a plus for me. It had funny jokes like Rarity interrupting the love-at-first-sight music and Trenderhoof subverting the rhyme. I like jokes.
This episode gets four fashion pones out of five, mainly missing one because Rarity at no point said "yee-haw!" and good gobbly fuck how do you miss that chance.

Between Trenderhoof and Blueblood, Rarity seems to have a thing for pining for ponies from afar, believing them to be true loves without having ever met them. She's a hopeless romantic, which fits with how melodramatic she can be. As a hopeless romantic myself, I can relate.
*This is an actual story. To say FiM handled a triangle better than fanfics do would be a massive understatement. It could've been so much worse.
**I'm not Bookmaster due to discretion.