>>42763073
The only thing that pisses me off about that episode is that it never happened. It rewinded itself from the timeline just right at the end. And things just keep happening in later episodes like it's nothing. Twilight shouldn't have recognized Arinos at the end of Infection. A lot of time swap/rewinds have way too many inconsistencies but honestly most time travel media has issues. I can't ask too much for this...

>Does the clown character go away later or stays?
So far he has been important in 3 episodes (2 movies and his introduction episode) and had small apperances in 2. So not really all that prominent in the current arc. For now.

Can I just drop all my issues with this character? I've been rewatching a lot of episodes and Arinos might be the most inconsistent character of the series. The episode where he got introduced got rewinded out of existence. So that means the knife didnt pierce Apple Bottoms chest and he couldnt be born at that point. (But maybe the events happened the same way after the rewind anyways. Why doing the rewind at the end then?) Its implied he was inside of the knife that got lost in time during Soarin and Friendship's battle during Infection. So... Was he a crossdressing clown before he got affected by AppleBottom? The first time we see him he didn't even recognize Soarin, but on the movie he's perfectly capable of exposition-dump him and knows way too much about him and what he has to do to solve his problems. Is that an Arinos from the future?

So far this is the order of events I can sort out together.
Friendship makes a Braeburn look-alike puppet during Infection (Not clear if he know Arinos yet? He still mentions him as the clown that beat Twilights ass tho). Said puppet gets pierced by Twilight with a random knife dropped by Friendship during the battle. He transforms into a clown after Twilight called him a clown. In the midst of all the chaos, the knife teleports to the past, to the episode where Apple Bottom and Care Package met. Arinos is trapped inside the knife until Twilight accidentally stabbs Apple Bottom's chest. (Let's say this episode got rewinded in time but at the end Braeburn still goes to Ponyville and all events happen the same way... Okay). Arinos feels existential dread and seeks for Friendship (His maker). At some point they meet and he fills him up with all he needs to know about Soarin??? There's no real explanation why Arinos knows the stuff he knows on Infection so we just have to asume he knows it from Friendship. That or... It's an Arinos from the future? Is the Friendship that convinces Soarin to create a timeline where he didn't met Braeburn a future Friendship?