Why was Moondancer, of all characters, chosen for AT&F? Not that she isn't a great character, mind, but she was only the focus of one episode and then mostly was forgotten. Is someone on the creative staff just a big Moonie lover who didn't feel she got much respect in MLP: FIM, so he/she/it/they decided to take pen in hand and fx that oversight?
This is such a great question! So she was not intended to be a long-term character when she first appeared. Even in our early episodes, she rarely did much and was sort of sidelined. But over time we felt she was blank enough of a slate that we could dive deeper into her character and make her someone that others could relate too. So we kept her. Originally, she was going to come for awhile then leave, and we'd have a rotating cast of people like that whom Twilight was going to help in some way.
Moondancer was chosen at random to begin with, but then morphed into someone we could really mold how we want. Much less baggage then say some character who already has a deep backstory to them! Awesome question.