Ranking the first half of MLP:FiM (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) Season 7!

1. Rock-Solid Friendship - Oh my god. My love for Maud is boundless. Only issue with this ep is that it needs a lot more Limestone. And Marble. Outside of Pinkie herself, those two are my favorite Pies. (Though I love the whole family...Cloudy Quartz & Igneous Rock are great. But oh, man, do I feel Limestone on a spiritual level. Maud, too.) I'm suuuuper-delighted that Maud now lives in Ponyville adjacent and is Starlight's latest new friend! Hopefully this means we're in for more Pie sister shenanigans (and I mean all four of 'em!)

2. The Perfect Pear - I'll just paste my YT comments about this one below.

3. Honest Apple - Stuff I adored: Inky Rose. 'Nother new fave! I'm all about her "Wednesday Addams" look. Excellent usage of buttons, spiderwebs, and black...8-D Also really like Lily Lace ("lit'rally" the Valley Girl one--but a cool, relatively smart VG?), and Starstreak. The fashion contest was rather brilliant. They pretty much brought their A-games. Inky's and Starstreak's creations are my favorites; I want them. Now. My style. Very. (Although, Inky was designing for stallions; maybe the spider-cutie-marked model's her bf? Or just f?)
Unsurprising, who voted for whom.
Starstreak's model's hair. (Actually Lily's as well.) Hoity-Toity and Photo Finish (who needs a fainting couch of her own! They both need to switch to untinted glasses so they can tell when belts are identical, though.) Rarity shredding on Pinkie's guitar; sick! Her asking "Is anything okay?" No, Rarity. Nothing is okay. Not one single solitary little thing. Strawberry Sunrise--ROFLMFAO. You never know when a random-ass blind-bag pony will appear as an actual named show character, and boy, can they surprise you. Never would've expected that to be her cameo, but I love it. Like oohhh, snap. Shots fired. xD
AJ's "Oh, whoops" moment was sorta priceless, too. Very well-done by both.
Gawd, she turned so mean on everypony--you'd think she'd get it by now that they're not designing things for working the fields/orchards. -_- AJ, I love ya, but you've helped with and worn and liked "girly," high-fashion shit before. Prioritizing function over fashion is great usually, but once again we just have somepony "getting carried away" and acting a little too extreme/unreasonable/jerkish so a lesson can be learned. Appreciate it, AJ...they did do a pretty wonderful joj. All in all, a good time. Nice ending. All three do deserve a boutique showcase. Bet that other goth-pone ('Moonlight Raven?') will be back to check out Inky Rose's items. And that they'd both love Maud.

4. A Royal Problem - Things I loved: The dignitaries (especially that pretty yellow/orange-haired one!) The hilarity of Luna, who evidently eats the outsides of pineapples. O_o Celestia's fruity pancake faces! 'Specially the pineapple/peach ones. 6: Twilight, still as insane as ever. <3 (But quit idolizing your fellow royals already, girl. Geez.) The reveal of Daybreaker was pretty epic, even if the battle wasn't precisely "real" (yet)...looked like a Fire-type vs. a Dark-type, hah. "Shadowball!" Terrific episode for both sisters! This one feels inspired by the Celestia-vs-Luna comic. In fact, there's a lot of match-up between the subject matter of recent issues and S7 episodes.
(Hey, Cellie, talking to oneself is behavior typical of the highly intelligent. ;) No wonder I do it so much. ;D Also, you don't throw away a beautiful plate of pancakes just because one pony doesn't want them right now! :O It was nice to get (very) quick glimpses of some Canterlot ponies and whatnot; I spotted a couple with red curls...;) In the castle staff and at the flower show. Luna's creepy teeth-falling-out nightmare, with the foals taunting her about her fake smiles, and the attitude Celestia uses to deal with ponies even when she's exhausted made me think of Effie. ;3;

5. Parental Glideance - Yaayy, my two fave ponies' parents are FINALLY met this season!! So Scoots' slingshot actually friggin' works and just HAPPENS to land at the hooves of..."Bow Hothoof?" I'm not understanding this name. Is it supposed to be some kind of pun/reference? Thought maybe it'd be spelled Beau, but...whatever. I love Windy Whistles! Her 80s look is RAD! Nice hair colors too. Of course, I'm disappointed they didn't make Firefly Dash's mum, but let's officially agree that she is her grandmother! Loved their house, Dash's favorite sammich, the amazing Pegasus-wing dexterity on display throughout the episode (too bad Lyra isn't one, they make better hands than hooves do), and the turtle poster ("When the going gets tough, the tough don't notice because they have hard shells!") And the fact that Rainbow's dad lit'rally tore off his shirt and threw it onto a random filly's face. XD There was some great writing and voice-acting going on in this one, truly. I must say, I am Dash...for better or worse, lol. "I'm AWEsome!" And I can't really blame her for the outburst?? I mean, guys. Really. Come on. There need to be limits, eh? It was a sweet ep, though, with the Dashaloo and family bonding. Windy & Bow certainly did make Dash who she is.

6. Hard to Say Anything - Got ourselves a canon Big Mac relationship! (A legitimate one!) Nice musical sequence. Great ending (with the title's fulfillment); Feather Bangs may be the town's Gaston/Bieber blend, but he's actually far less repellent than either of those. xD Now, who will HIS lucky "bimbette" be? Personally I might go with the one with the Flitter/Cloudchaser/Stormwalker-esque color scheme. Or perhaps the light-green/yellow...

7. All Bottled Up - Love Starlight. Her friendship with Trixie is great. Now, we've just gotta get her OTHER friend Sunset into the ACTUAL show (those latest EG shorts were fun, but c'mooooonnn. It's still kind of annoying that we had to get this whole weird pony-human dimension just to sell humanoid dolls as well as ponies. Like, if you wanted to do their human forms, fine, but why couldn't it have been realistic humans with human names and stuff...? Idk. I like EG, but we could just as easily do without it.)

8. Forever Filly - At first I was afraid Sweetie Belle was going to take on that insufferable "I'm grown-up and hate all that stupid baby stuff now" attitude. But actually, you sympathized more with her. It was quite obvious that she wanted to be helping Zipporwhill. Rarity was seriously oblivious. How RUDE is it to show up unannounced and assume that someone, even a child, is free to just drop whatever they were intending to do next to spend the whole day with you?! Anyway. No matter your age, you can still enjoy balloon animals and silly dressup and puppet shows and larger portions of your childhood-favorite ice cream flavor. Just, under better circumstances...?! The ending made it clear that neither is "too old" to goof off (messily) with her sister in public. xD Best part of the ep? RIPLEY! Omg, what a cutie. ;; That little terrier mix looks pretty much the way I picture Haribo/Harrybo (my Gummi Pup Sweet-Scented Pillow Pet who is too perfect for this undeserving world) to look in regular-dog (that is, non-dog/pillow-hybrid) form. Also, Sassy Saddles! Kept expecting the episode to cut back to her wishing for Rarity's return, but that would've been pretty cliche. Hope to continue seeing her. Also look forward to seeing the CMC grow physically (Twist is already taller, leaner, more svelte and sexy than the other fillies. She gon' be a bombshell. ;)

9. Not Asking For Trouble - "Pink pony better check self before wreck self!"

10. Discordant Harmony - Pinkie's advice was good; Disco (Cordy?) just went about it wrong. Now that they're besties, being himself does make Flutters comfy. ^^

11. Celestial Advice

12. Fluttershy Leans In - I kept waiting for the specialist ponies to see their errors and admit that they just hadn't been grasping Flutters' vision. The ending felt a bit rushed.

13. A Flurry of Emotions - This and "Celestial Advice" were fine. They just didn't do as much for me as the others.

*TPP: 🍐 Wow. What a great episode...finally, the story of their parents...*sniff* *tear-flick*  "Bright Mac, Bright Mac--wherefore art thou Bright Mac?!"

I mean, of course I still wanna know how they died, but I figured we wouldn't learn that. Least not yet. But that was so romantic. ;3; Pear's song is beautiful. And she was really pretty (Granny Smith too, though I maintain her name should have been Annie Smith before she became a grandma. That would've been a clever apple name pun.) Speaking of which, Grand-Pear of course sounds like the French word for grandfather, only...what a weird name to give a colt? xD 

I guess...they're still Apples to the core, but pears as well. 

I also really liked Burnt Oak. 
But "Chiffon Swirl" sure sounds like a baker-type name to me, Mrs. Cake. ;p Pretty one, too. (I liked how she was all, "Oh I see you're 'busy...'" *wink-nudge* LOL) 
Plus, Mayor Mare didn't always have white hair. xD Oh, and Applebloom sure took after her dad, physically. :D

NEW Favorite Characters: 1) Inky Rose 2) Lily Lace 3) Starstreak 4) Pear Butter 5) Windy Whistles 6) Bright Mac 7) Bow Hothoof 8) Strawberry Sunrise // 9) Coconut Cream (pastel filly, not blind-bag mare; maybe her relative?)

And now to look forward to the resumption of the season...er, sometime or other...as well as GAME OF PONES' return two days before me birfdee, eeeeeee......!!!! x~3 #GameOfPones #MyLittleThrony What a month. *w* Apparently the next pony ep features the return of Coloratura, so YAAYYY (lots of new faves getting introduced or coming back, I love it! Let's have more Treehugger & everypony else in that pic!!)

EDIT! Best new characters from remainder of Season 7:

Mistmane
Somnambula
Rockhoof
Flash Magnus
Mage Meadowbrook
Stygian
Pharynx

From the movie: I like all of the main new characters, but particularly Skystar (& the other seaponies/hippogriffs), and then Tempest Shadow.
Been tracking all the favorite comic ones in here.

FAVE Equestria Girls:

Sunset Shimmer
Adagio
Aria
Lemon Zest
Sugarcoat
Sour-Sweet
Principal Cinch
Gloriosa Daisy
Timber Spruce
Juniper Montage
(also like Sonata, Sunny Flare, Indigo Zap, etc.)

https://www.pinterest.com/tequilamocknjay/my-pony-pals/