Pony General:"Season 12 will never air" edition.

 Spoiler

I felt there were quite a few subtle nods to fandom stuff, like one Pinkie giving herself faux fingers, watching paint dry is what Pinkie did in a rather well known fanfic, and defying the laws of physics and logic even more than before. Also nice callbacks on Rainbow Dash reading and Harry the bear. For me I liked the episode a lot if only for how whacky it got. It won't be long until people associate the Pinkie Clones with the birds from Finding Nemo.

Also, in that source link. Is that actually you, Blitz?

 Spoiler

While the hoof-fingers does remind of Lyra, I don't necessary think that's a nod. Same as the paint dry one, although I don't even know what the fanfic is. It's just like Zecora saying "Little Pip" in Luna Eclipsed, or crazy Pinkie Pie in "Party of One". A small group of writers given a period to write a script, versus thousands of us creating fanon every passing second, it's hard not to cross paths eventually. I'm not surprised if all the "references" of fanon in Season 3 are pure coincidence.

And yes that is me.