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[SigmasonicX]

This was a pretty good episode, much more so than I was expecting, with a lot of fun visuals. I was impressed by the way they justified including Applejack and Fluttershy, with the latter insisting that Flim and Flam needed help and the former looking for anyone with a problem but those two, and without both, they wouldn't have uncovered the larger problem. It's odd that the activity book summarizing this episode specifically stated that Applejack and Fluttershy didn't know in the end why the map sent them there.

It's clever how, to get around depicting gambling in a children's show, they instead turn Las Pegasus into a big amusement park, with claw machines and other children's games replacing slot machines. And DDR. I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't get a part with Fluttershy becoming addicted to the games and spending all of their bits or something.

I wonder if Impossibly Rich is real. It was Filthy Rich's great-grandfather(?), Stinkin' Rich, that started the family fortune, so there's certainly room for relatives.

Gladmane's scheme is similar to Sunset Shimmer's in the first Equestria Girls movie, where she split up the Humane Five until Twilight got them back together, and it partially has the same problem that they easily could have just talked things out, but it makes more sense here. He was making everyone suspicious of each other, as opposed to causing conflicts with single large events that could easily be traced back to him if anyone even tried to look, and he made them trust him. Plus, you know, he actually had an in-universe motive for doing this, unlike Sunset. The only potential issue was the animal trainers not realizing Gladmane was lying about the different routines.

I saw coming a mile away that the real trick was catching Gladmane gloating, but I love that it involved Fluttershy very obviously reaching over his desk to press his speaker button.

Flim and Flam were used well here, especially in how they were used to justify the heroes discovering Gladmane's scheme. This is their first speaking appearance without a song, which surprised me, since I thought that was their thing.

Oh, and once again, I'm busy this week, so don't expect an episode roundup until Wednesday.

 

[SparksterMeta0]

You can just see the exact moment of disgust (?) on AJ's face hearing a pair of voices she wished she'd never hear again.

You gotta love those kind of visuals.

 

[SigmasonicX]

^ Yeah, I enjoyed that they played Applejack's initial reaction subtly like that.

December comic solicitations. Wasn't there supposed to be a Guardians of Harmony comic starting this year? Whatever happened to that?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #49

Ted Anderson (w) • Andy Price (a & c)
“Chaos Theory,” Part 2 (of 3). With Accord's powers affecting the ponies of Equestria, Twilight and company will have to resort to unorthodox measures to get Discord back to normal! Well, normal for Discord!

My Little Pony: Friends Forever #35

Rob Anderson (w) • Jay Fosgitt (a) • Tony Fleecs (c)
Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer tidy up the library in the Castle of the Two Sisters. What begins as a friendly activity soon turns into magic- based battle of egos and starts to transform the castle into a very dangerous place!

Larger version of the FiM #49 subscription cover, which is really good. For the other images, a reminder that you can adjust the URL by replacing s320 with s2000 to get a larger version. I don't think I've seen Accord be used as a name for "Discord for order" before. As for the Friends Forever issue, it seems like Starlight and Twilight might be portrayed as having a more combative relationship than what we see in the show. By the way, the preview for FiM #46 shows that that issue will be Starlight's first appearance in the comics, not this.

Episode roundup should come tomorrow.

 

[Orcastar]

Man, Friends Forever #35 sounded really promising until I noticed that it's being drawn by Fosgitt.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Man, Friends Forever #35 sounded really promising until I noticed that it's being drawn by Fosgitt.

I think he's fine most of the time, outside of screw ups like using stock art cutie marks in the Pinkie & Celestia issue and messing up character designs in Rarity & Gilda. And the general human posing.

In an odd coincidence, this second time I've done episode roundups on Wednesday has again coincided with the release of a comic. The roundup will either be edited into this post later today or in another post, depending on if someone else posts in the meantime.

Friends Forever #32 - Fluttershy and Daring Do
Right off the bat, I feel that Daring Do is out of character. Even if she thought she needed Fluttershy's help, I don't think she'd be so gung-ho about it. Plus, what's she doing going around everywhere as Daring Do, instead of as whatever-her-author-name-was or in disguise? Also, Daring Do's sudden fear of spiders doesn't match up to what we saw in her first episode, "Read it and Weep".

I like the idea of map spiders. There's another alicorn out of nowhere, with Queen Parabola, but I guess it's fine if she's just a legend.

I liked Fluttershy's response to coming back to see that Daring's in a fight is, "Oh. You're having a brawl." I also liked Daring's line of, "Oh, good! It's one of those kinds of castles. This'll be easy," after triggering a spear trap.

I liked the way Cabelleron and Ahuizotl were drawn in this issue; they worked well with exaggerated features.

This issue involves getting over a fear of spiders, which officially makes it GAF's most hated comic. But seriously, I wasn't a fan of how Daring was presented in this story, but ignoring that, it's decently fun.

Silver Quill's review does make me appreciate how at no point did either Fluttershy or Daring try to abandon the other.

EDIT: Roundup post taking a while, so I'll post it tomorrow.

 

[SigmasonicX]

This got delayed to today, so new post. Also, I suppose I'll include some news.

Preview for "Every Little Thing She Does"

Early on in this season, I went through the effort of scaling each image so they had the same height, instead of just setting everything to s250 or s320, so I'll do it again this time. I won't have such fine control over Derpibooru resizing, though.

PREVIOUS EPISODE
Enermatrix remix of "Find the Purpose of Your Life"
Nicolas Dominique remix

Gabriella - Can't wait to show you to everyone
Pones - Parody of the TV show Bones
Closer Than Far
Gabby

Maybe Too Friendly
Derpy and Gabby

Comics:
Ogres and Oubliettes - Shining made a huge mistake
Scientist Passion - Another "Twilight didn't get the memo" comic
Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight - Cultural Exchange - Again, doesn't have anything to do with either episode.

SCREENCAPS
For some reason, just for these images, ED's roundup switched the URL format such that I can't just resize them via changing the URL. At this point, it's too much effort to rehost them or find alternatives on Derpibooru, so whatever, linking all of them.

Background ponies
Las Pegasus wide shot
Running past Applejack and Fluttershy at the start
Entering Gladmane's
Inside Gladmane's
Penn and Teller, rocker male Derpy, mare some are calling Lovelock
Various background ponies - Note that some are saying the one on the bottom left is a pony version of Pearl from Steven Universe. The color scheme is way off, but her cutie mark is a rose surrounded by hearts, and the hair style is similar. There have been instances in the past of intended cameos being covered up by a color scheme change, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility.
I totally thought this green stallion was Flim or Flam in disguise at first

Sources for the posters
Chargrill Breadwinner and Orange Slice from “Spice Up Your Life”
Ponies in game area
Carrot Bun (server from "Stranger Than Fanfiction") still hating life, carrying plushies for ursa minors, a phoenix, a jackalope, and parasprites

Scooter the Muppet
Buffet area, with Gordon Ramsay pony
Applejack and Fluttershy's food, Svengallop can be seen under Applejack's tail
More background ponies
Lipstick holder
More background ponies, including one drinking from the fountain

Smugshy remains best shy
Fluttershy as Impossibly Rich
Triple Gladmane
Fluttershy smiling after hitting the intercom button

And Derpibooru images, which I'll just link too.
Surrounded by hamsters, couldn't be happier
Shocked about Flim and Flam

GIFS
Dance Dance Revolution!
Trapeze Star on the trapeze
Dramatic Applejack
What the hell is this game anyway?
Disappointed Fluttershy
Fluttershy putting her hair down

FANWORKS
Flutterly Rich, and humanized art specifically inspired by that fanart, Las Pegasus Lights

More Fluttershy (and Applejack) art. And one miscellaneous.
Impossibly Rich
Humanized Impossibly Rich Fluttershy
Deceit masters
DDRave, humanized art featuring that raver pony that may or may not be a Pinkie clone

More Gladmane art than I expected, really.
Mr. Gladmane
Glademane The Puppeteer
Viva Las Gladmane

The acrobat pony, designated Trapeze Star in the credits so most people are just going ahead and assuming that's her name, has gotten a lot of art.
The Acrobatic Pony Trapeze Star
Blending Genres
pony fantastic
Trapeze Star
Another Trapeze Star
The Trapeze
Humanized Trapeze Star

Comics
Too much! - When Flim and Flam asked about Fluttershy's dress size, I was half expecting something like this to happen, with Fluttershy being a model getting a callback.
Impossibly Apple Rich - Similar to the above comic

 

[DrForester]

This got delayed to today, so new post. Also, I suppose I'll include some news.

Preview for "Every Little Thing She Does"

So, Starlight Glimmer hasn't learned a thing.

Cut her horn off and banish her.

 

[UberTag]

So, Sunset Shimmer hasn't learned a thing.

Cut her horn off and banish her.

Shimmer learns her lessons. Glimmer does not.
That said, it's nice to see Starlight interact with the rest of the Mane Six for once... not that said interaction is looking promising or friendship lesson-worthy.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

Shimmer learns her lessons. Glimmer does not.
That said, it's nice to see Starlight interact with the rest of the Mane Six for once... not that said interaction is looking promising or friendship lesson-worthy.

It makes things interesting, because she is slowly going through the process of becoming a better pony, but she still has some of her old ways. She stumbles in trying to do better along the way, like this for example. Hopefully still, she learns a valuable lesson from all this.

 

[DrForester]

It makes things interesting, because she is slowly going through the process of becoming a better pony, but she still has some of her old ways. She stumbles in trying to do better along the way, like this for example. Hopefully still, she learns a valuable lesson from all this.

Starlight Glimmer is basically Pony Sheldon. She has zero social skills, zero interest in developing social skills, and sees others as tools to do her bidding and make her life pleasant.

Shimmer learns her lessons. Glimmer does not.

Whoops. Accidentally confused the Name Brand pony (Sunset) with the "best value" copy (Starlight).

 

[Akiraptor]

Loving all the new Gabby artwork coming out. I need to catch up with the latest episodes.

 

[UberTag]

Loving all the new Gabby artwork coming out. I need to catch up with the latest episodes.

I know I've been down on this season but I did finally get around to watching the last two episodes following my annual movie festival binge and rather enjoyed them. The Gabby/CMC episode especially was an unexpected delight.

The voice delivery Erin Mathews employed for Gabby reminded me a lot of another voice that can grate on people's nerves and is yet somewhat endearing. Was very similar to Cynthia Martinez... a long-time ADV/Sentai VA out of Houston whom you'll find in a number of anime dub localizations. Erin's Gabby reminded me a lot of Cynthia's Sora Naegino from Kaleido Star (a Mary Sue character in her own right).

 

[Lightning_Roller]

Starlight Glimmer is basically Pony Sheldon. She has zero social skills, zero interest in developing social skills, and sees others as tools to do her bidding and make her life pleasant.



Whoops. Accidentally confused the Name Brand pony (Sunset) with the "best value" copy (Starlight).

Well you see the thing about that is that Starlight would actually see that she was messing up and would show remorse, like when all that time travel nonsense happened. Sheldon is...well Sheldon.

 

[novenD]

Whoops. Accidentally confused the Name Brand pony (Sunset) with the "best value" copy (Starlight).

Lies detected: zero

I'll wait for the actual episode to drop, but that clip isn't inspiring confidence.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

This episode was pretty good. I loved all the antics the ponies got up to due to lack of concise direction, as well as a hangover allegory.

 

[DrForester]

Other than the hangover scene being hilarious, this wasn't a good episode in my opinion.

That Starlight still regards others as needing to serve her every will, and using magic to force them to behave as she wants to is truly a disgusting character trait, and she faces no real consequences for doing it again and again.

 

[draetenth]

I liked it though I still have issues with how powerful Starlight is (seriously how the hell is she keeping up with a pony who was supposed to represent magic and that was before she ascended - unless Alicorns really aren't that special)... Twilight was pretty good in this episode, though I felt using magic to compel any pony, but especially your friends should have merited a sterner punishment. Even if the theme is magic is friendship and about forgiving others, I felt there still should have been something...

 

[PaulloDEC]

I liked this one more than I was expecting to. Seeing everything start to fall apart was quite fun, and having Starlight's cluelessly amoral streak stubbornly sticking around makes her interesting to watch.

That Big Mac Predator reference, too.

That Starlight still regards others as needing to serve her every will, and using magic to force them to behave as she wants to is truly a disgusting character trait, and she faces no real consequences for doing it again and again.

Starlight is still kind of a sociopath, but I think the reason everyone goes easy on her is that she's making a legit effort to change. I imagine it's quite an adjustment going from cult leader in a remote village to living among regular society. Might take a while for Starlight to let go of the old ways.

I'll admit I was expecting a little more anger from Twilight, but perhaps we're seeing a little of Celestia's more measured disposition in her now.

I liked it though I still have issues with how powerful Starlight is (seriously how the hell is she keeping up with a pony who was supposed to represent magic and that was before she ascended - unless Alicorns really aren't that special)... Twilight was pretty good in this episode, though I felt using magic to compel any pony, but especially your friends should have merited a sterner punishment. Even if the theme is magic is friendship and about forgiving others, I felt there still should have been something...

I think the point re: the bolded is that power levels don't really mean much in this universe. Twilight wasn't the Element of Magic because she was the "most powerful" pony for the job; it was because she was the right pony for the job. Likewise her ascension.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

Other than the hangover scene being hilarious, this wasn't a good episode in my opinion.

That Starlight still regards others as needing to serve her every will, and using magic to force them to behave as she wants to is truly a disgusting character trait, and she faces no real consequences for doing it again and again.

Dr Forester, I agree with you. Even though I enjoy some of Starlight's character traits, her overuse of magic and being able to escape consequences in this episode makes me a bit sour towards Starlight. I think she might have gotten off a bit easy. Honestly I hope in the future, the writers put Starlight in a situation that she can't so easily get out of without consequence. She needs to at least own up to her actions and learn.

...

Oh, that was the argument you were making, Forester. I'm sorry for being a dunderhead. I hope you can forgive me.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Conceptually, I'm glad that the show has Starlight still undergoing the process of becoming good. One problem I have with Sunset Shimmer is that what was saw in the first Equestria Girls is nothing like what we see in Rainbow Rocks on, with no real explanation or demonstration of how this happened. In Rainbow Rocks, Sunset was 100% good but wasn't trusted by others, while Starlight is mostly trusted but struggles with being good. Unlike Sunset, Starlight still demonstrates characteristics that she had as a villain. However, I was worried because I knew that this played into why people dislike Starlight as a character.

I also admit, much of my discomfort with the episode is actually due to powerlevel issues, as odd as that is with My Little Pony. I had previously argued that in "The Cutie Re-Mark", Twilight could have beaten Starlight in a fight if it wasn't for Starlight's additional win condition of distracting filly Rainbow Dash, but this episode demonstrates that they're much closer in power than I had previously assumed. Plus, I just knew all this would further play into the "unicorn master race" complaints, especially now that we know spells can boost physical attributes like speed.

Plus, there's the "mind control is easily forgiven" thing, which I know really bothers a lot of people.

Now, ignoring all that, I thought this was a pretty fun episode. It was nice to see more of Twilight's castle and a variety of spells, and Starlight just not getting what the problem was was pretty amusing. I'm sure Twilight's glad that the castle is big enough that Fluttershy Hall of Horrors can safely be ignored and never visited again.

By the way, Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree has already aired in Brazil, so keep an eye out for spoilers and images.

 

[PaulloDEC]

I also admit, much of my discomfort with the episode is actually due to powerlevel issues, as odd as that is with My Little Pony. I had previously argued that in "The Cutie Re-Mark", Twilight could have beaten Starlight in a fight if it wasn't for Starlight's additional win condition of distracting filly Rainbow Dash, but this episode demonstrates that they're much closer in power than I had previously assumed.

"Power" is a pretty nebulous thing, though; there's an awful lot more to the "Who would win in a fight?" thing than raw power. Who wants it more? Who's willing to fight dirtier? Who has more skill? More knowledge? Who's more agile? Has more endurance? Is more resilient?

FiM makes it even trickier because characters rarely unleash everything they have. The only time we've seen Twilight looking like she's properly out for blood is in Twilight's Kingdom, and she's running on the power of four Alicorns there.

Spoiler

With all that being said, they do seem pretty closely matched. Maybe Alicorns have to grow into their additional power.

Plus, I just knew all this would further play into the "unicorn master race" complaints, especially now that we know spells can boost physical attributes like speed.

Even in Equestria, life ain't always fair.

 

[DemWalls]

Never had a problem with Starlight's power level, honestly. Don't find it hard to accept her as an exceptionally gifted character, more powerful than Twilight, even. She's not the first character like that, she certainly won't be the last.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Never had a problem with Starlight's power level, honestly. Don't find it hard to accept her as an exceptionally gifted character, more powerful than Twilight, even. She's not the first character like that, she certainly won't be the last.

That's where I'm at too, to be honest. If anything I kinda like that it makes Twilight a bit of an underdog again.

 

[DemWalls]

So, since I had some spare time I also watched Legend of Everfree. As for the previous movies, some additional 20 minutes wouldn't hurt, and it's not really unpredictable, but it was mostly fine. Certainly like it more than I did Friendship Games on first watch, although that one ended up growing on me.

Lots of cool new designs, and as I see it the probability of a separate EG TV series is getting higher. Let's see what they'll do with the next one.

 

[Infinite Justice]

One problem I have with Sunset Shimmer is that what was saw in the first Equestria Girls is nothing like what we see in Rainbow Rocks on, with no real explanation or demonstration of how this happened. In Rainbow Rocks, Sunset was 100% good but wasn't trusted by others.

Being fair we haven't been given a time frame between the first movie and rainbow rocks iirc (the only thing to gather is that the school is fixed lol) to know how long she has been on the reform train. Also I don't think its weird to change as much if the trauma of what you were doing is large enough for you to make that change (in sunset's case that whole crown and demon thing was apparently no joke).

Plus what made the whole thing work (for me at least) was that people were still suspicious because it also seems sudden and she still had to struggle with not only learning how to change but showing others that she has changed.

And she still had lingering issues from her former role like with her temper (which friendship games also hinted at) to deal with.

 

[Orcastar]

New episode was good, much better than last week's. They should have focused more heavily on Starlight Glimmer this season.

Also watched Legend of Everfree and found it mediocre at best. Better than Friendship Games, worse than Rainbow Rocks, which really wasn't all that good either.

 

[SigmasonicX]

At first I thought you guys were watching English subs on the Brazilian version, but it turns out the network that aired it also offered an English language option, so the English version is now available online. You guys can discuss it, but for details, it's probably best to use spoiler tags until the official English release next week on Netflix.

New episode was good, much better than last week's.

You didn't make a post about last week's episode. Can you say more about what you didn't like about it?

 

[UberTag]

I feel really conflicted about Equestria Girls in that I don't much care for the individual movies and yet I like Sunset Shimmer as a character a lot. And this comes despite the fact that I agree wholeheartedly with SigmasonicX's observation that it's refreshing to see Starlight Glimmer outwardly struggle with her assimilation into Ponyville social structure - a struggle that was largely whitewashed away in Sunset's case.

I can't help but feel like the end game for the EG movies is for Dougworld Sunset to pop up and for the Sunset Shimmer we know to have to retreat back to Equestria as a sacrificial gesture to prevent some sort of magic destabilization paradox. I doubt this story will ever get told but I think it would be pretty darn fascinating to see Sunset Shimmer attempt to reintegrate into being a pony again (sort of a reverse-EG1 Twilight arc) and to see her take the experience she's gained from living as a human into life as a unicorn.

 

[Orcastar]

You didn't make a post about last week's episode. Can you say more about what you didn't like about it?

Just found it bland and forgettable. As in I honestly can't think of anything to say about it.

I can't help but feel like the end game for the EG movies is for Dougworld Sunset to pop up and for the Sunset Shimmer we know to have to retreat back to Equestria as a sacrificial gesture to prevent some sort of magic destabilization paradox. I doubt this story will ever get told but I think it would be pretty darn fascinating to see Sunset Shimmer attempt to reintegrate into being a pony again (sort of a reverse-EG1 Twilight arc) and to see her take the experience she's gained from living as a human into life as a unicorn.

That would be interesting, but it seems they're pretty committed to the "monster of the week" format.

Spoiler

Especially now that LoE basically sets them up as a straight up superhero team.

 

[UberTag]

That would be interesting, but it seems they're pretty committed to the "monster of the week" format.

Spoiler

Especially now that LoE basically sets them up as a straight up superhero team.

Oh yeah, they're not deviating from the established formula any time soon. Hasbro won't allow it. That's purely a final movie idea for them to trot out more than anything.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Before the episode roundup, it turns out the new wave of blindbag ponies has a scrunchy face. Also, Minuette as a doctor (close enough to dentist) and other weird things.

PREVIOUS EPISODES
Gabby plushies! The former is better at following Gabby's design.

"Viva Las Pegasus" was covered just a few days ago, so there isn't much of a backlog.

Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight - Deep Cover - Not linked to the previous episode, but rather "Gauntlet of Fire", and has best dragon.

NOTES
A lot of people have brought up that it's odd how Starlight and Twilight are around the same age, with the former possibly being older, yet they have a student/mentor relationship. But this Round Stable post brought up that "friendship lessons" may actually be closer to therapy lessons. If you view the entire situation as Twilight being Starlight's therapist, presented in a way that distances it from something that many unfortunately view negatively and in a way that's perhaps easier for a child to get, then I think their relationship makes a lot more sense. The poster uses this to point out that this could lead to dark stuff if the show were so inclined, and while I don't agree that this would even be a good direction for the show to go into, particularly the "reality ensues" aspect of it being bad for therapy to be handled by someone who isn't a therapist, I do agree that more time should have been devoted to this if they really wanted to explore it.

At this point, I still think it's fairly likely for Starlight to leave after the season finale, completing friendship lessons to Twilight's satisfaction and being sent on her way. If that doesn't happen, then hopefully the show gives more attention to this next series.

Though I could imagine the season finale going this way: the Main Six discuss how Starlight's reformation is going, and an exasperated Rainbow half-jokingly exclaims that it would be easier for them all if they just sent her to Tartarus. Twilight snaps back that just because things are going more slowly with Starlight than they expected doesn't mean they should just give up on her, and Rainbow concedes the point. Of course, Starlight overhears all this. Jump ahead, the Main Six are captured by the villain and such. The villain asks Starlight why she's bothering to help them when none of them really consider her a friend, Starlight gives a friendship speech, friendship happens, I get to mark "emotional episode" on my bingo card. I feel like that sort of thing could address a lot of complaints.

The Round Stable thread for this episode generally has a lot of interesting discussion of Starlight's character. Another interesting idea comes from contrasting Starlight in "No Second Prances" and this episode. It would be good if the finale actually brought up that the friendship lesson of that episode (which Twilight disapproved of initially) seemed to work out for Starlight better than the ones in this episode (designed by Twilight), and Twilight realized herself that she was going about things the wrong way.

That thread also made me realize: Starlight really is being portrayed remarkably consistently. I have a bunch of stuff to say about that and more, but I'd have a hard time linking it all together, and I don't want to spend the time.

SCREENSHOTS
I think I'll continue to link most of the screenshots, but I'll embed a few.

Unicorns with bats
Captain A-mare-ica

Trixie portrait and not equal

Pinkie face

Granny and the pig
Care to have a seat?
Big Mac in Predator

Pinkie at an unusual angle

Fluttershy and bugs
Neat art with Pinkie's overcooking
Flooded castle interior
Wet manes

Rarity's hangover hat
Twilight's castle has a neat roof

And hey, finally some half-decent YouTube captions! Embedding at a larger size than usual so the captions are visible.
Twilight's real destination
Don't mind if I do!
Starlight's true goal
Starlight contradicting herself, smh
And the best for last

GIFS
Like screencaps, will embed a few.

Transformation spells
Horn won't go out
Having fun teleporting
Twilight vs. Starlight part 1
Twilight vs. Starlight part 2

Edit of Starlight's attack

Pinkie face gif
Pinkie's failed attempt at a song

Pinkie's hyperspeed baking
Baking with Pinkie full scene
Rarity stomping paper
Results of Pinkie's baking

Angry Twilight
Angry Dash

Starlight happy that Pinkie-senpai noticed her (no caption, longer)
Happy Rarity

Twilight taking secret notes

FANWORKS
Not directly related, but good Starlight animation

Starlight studying
Deep Studies
The Spar

I'm bored
Starlight Glimmer Spell
Whatever you bake, Starlight - Has some OCs
Whatever You Want to Do First, Starlight Glimmer

Glimglam's Bakery
Making Cakes

Hi Starlight
I've gathered them

The Princess's Apprentice
YOU SILLY PONY - Simpsons reference

Trash Stomp

Comics
Lesson One - Made before the episode
EDIT: On DeviantArt now, so just going ahead and linking that.
Every Little Thing She Does - NOTE: The subject is suggestive, even if nothing is depicted. There's an edit of the original comic on Derpibooru that adds a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure style "To be continued", which adds so much, but the source listed for that links back to the artist's NSFW blog, so no link for that.

 

[SigmasonicX]

EDIT: Forgot to mention, Pinkie's baking song that Starlight interrupted is quoting the cake song from Lazytown. Comparison.

In my previous comic solicitations post, I wondered what happened to the Guardians of Harmony comic that was supposed to come this year, and here it is!

It's being released online-only on December 1, with a physical release coming in February 2017. It's still unclear to me whether this will be a full-fledged series or just a one-shot, but I'm favoring the latter.

Included in the link is an 8-page preview story from the comic, involving Rainbow fighting the Shadowbolts. It's fun enough, but more than anything else in the show or comics, this feels really like a toyline tie-in, which it is of course. What I mean is that little consideration seems to have been paid to the set-up or story, and it really feels like Jeremy Whitley was just told to make a story where Rainbow fights the Shadowbolts. Still, like I said, it's a fun story and the art from Andy Price and Heather Breckel is good. I'm looking forward to the story explanation for adult Spike.

 

[Orcastar]

I'm more interested in the story explanation for Nightmare Moon.

 

[Sciz]

You guys can discuss it, but for details, it's probably best to use spoiler tags until the official English release next week on Netflix.

Spoiler

Picking away at a longer critique of the film, but the short version is that most character motivations are either incoherent or repeats of stuff we've already seen in the prior films, there's a lot of faffing about in ways that don't contribute to the plot, and the romance angle is godawful and somehow even worse than Flash was in EG1, who ironically has the most realistically human dialogue in this one. It's MLP doing Scooby Doo by way of Ernest Goes To Camp, but less funny, more toyetic, and in need of another editing pass. It's still watchable, but nobody's going to come into this and have it be their new favorite entry in the series.

 

[PaulloDEC]

In my previous comic solicitations post, I wondered what happened to the Guardians of Harmony comic that was supposed to come this year, and here it is!

It's being released online-only on December 1, with a physical release coming in February 2017. It's still unclear to me whether this will be a full-fledged series or just a one-shot, but I'm favoring the latter.

Included in the link is an 8-page preview story from the comic, involving Rainbow fighting the Shadowbolts. It's fun enough, but more than anything else in the show or comics, this feels really like a toyline tie-in, which it is of course. What I mean is that little consideration seems to have been paid to the set-up or story, and it really feels like Jeremy Whitley was just told to make a story where Rainbow fights the Shadowbolts. Still, like I said, it's a fun story and the art from Andy Price and Heather Breckel is good. I'm looking forward to the story explanation for adult Spike.

Nice to see this thing finally surfaced, but as you say, it doesn't look to be anything particularly unique. Ah well.

Spoiler

Picking away at a longer critique of the film, but the short version is that most character motivations are either incoherent or repeats of stuff we've already seen in the prior films, there's a lot of faffing about in ways that don't contribute to the plot, and the romance angle is godawful and somehow even worse than Flash was in EG1, who ironically has the most realistically human dialogue in this one. It's MLP doing Scooby Doo by way of Ernest Goes To Camp, but less funny, more toyetic, and in need of another editing pass. It's still watchable, but nobody's going to come into this and have it be their new favorite entry in the series.

Very well put.

My main problem with Legend of Everfree is the same problem I've had with the last three movies; premise-wise, they're just not very interesting. As a result, nobody has much interesting to say or do for most of the movie, and even the songs are kinda crippled by the people singing them not having anything worthwhile to sing about.

 

[SigmasonicX]

So, uh, it looks like the rest of season 6 is airing in the UK next week. If this happens, then I can't stop discussion of a group of episodes that includes the season finale, so talk about it with spoiler tags, clearly marking in plain text which episode you're talking about before it.

Friendship is Magic #46
This issue marks the first appearance of Starlight Glimmer in the comic. She's mainly just there to receive exposition about Mayor Mare, particularly that she's run unopposed for years, but there's a fun joke with Spike remarking that it's just like Starlight's village. She basically disappears after that.

I liked the moment where everyone calmly discussed who they're voting for, and I would have preferred that the candidates actually did run campaigns on legitimate issues as opposed to Filthy Rich making random promises. And I mean that in the sense that I think it would lead to a more interesting story if there were legitimate reasons to favor him. But I suppose this story is partially intended to show kids not to fall for someone with wild promises. In any case, I liked the scene where he tried to get the pegasus vote.

I must say, Twilight joining Mayor Mare's campaign seems very improper. I'd say it would skew the polls, but people only care about Twilight being a princess for random things. Plus, I suppose Mayor Mare chose not to advertise this endorsement.

The comic's going for Time Turner as that brown-coated pony's name, instead of Dr. Hooves like he's credited in "Slice of Life". I liked what little we saw of the other candidates, and I wished we could have gotten more of that.

I did like how even in the run-up to the election, there were no insults between the factions.

Overall, it was alright. It should be noted that there really aren't any major parallels with the current US presidential election, beyond surface level details. While that's to be expected, I'm a bit disappointed we didn't get any airhorns.

 

[Orin GA]

Why can't we have an episode where the lesson is "Saying sorry sometimes isn't enough"

 

[Choppasmith]

Another two months, another big catchup post. You might be asking "What keeps you from watching the episodes?" well a bunch of things. My sister, who lives with me, and I have very different schedules and MLP is one of those things we really like watching together, so sometimes my MLP watching can be pushed back until we finally have a chance to catch up together. That and I've been on my computer a lot less which is really my preference for typing out long posts (I also prefer to make meaningful posts that are more than "yeah it was good, I agree".

The Cart Before the Ponies: Honestly the one thing I took from this episode was that C+D'd fan game Pony Kart is canon now! I feel like this is one of those episodes where they seem to dumb down the characters to serve the plot. I couldn't help but think "You ponies REALLY should know better" but otherwise it kinda holds together.

28 Pranks Later: After the S1 episode Griffin the Brush-off, I'm surprised it took so long for an episode like this to come out. Definitely a clever way to do "zombies" on a kids show.

The Times They Are a Changeling: Honestly I found the song kinda forgettable, even though it's cool that Spike was the focus. Maybe I'm crazy but the ending felt abrupt. I'm going to presume Thorax plays a role in the finale somehow, but it would've been nice if we got more of an idea how.

Dungeons and Discord: Fun episode, but I'd say the thing that bugs me is that it seemed the moral of the episode was "trying new things because you'll probably find them fun in the end" but it seemed so one-sided. What would be so bad about Spike and Big Mac joining Discord for a night out? That seemed like a pretty glaring omission from the episode.

Hoofball Season: Kinda indifferent about this episode. Not bad, not particularly good either. Nothing really stuck out to me.

The Fault in Our Cutie Marks: Yay! A new Griffin character and she's adorable! A good episode all around. Nice callback to previous episodes. Speaking of which...

I know I've been down on this season but I did finally get around to watching the last two episodes following my annual movie festival binge and rather enjoyed them. The Gabby/CMC episode especially was an unexpected delight.

The voice delivery Erin Mathews employed for Gabby reminded me a lot of another voice that can grate on people's nerves and is yet somewhat endearing. Was very similar to Cynthia Martinez... a long-time ADV/Sentai VA out of Houston whom you'll find in a number of anime dub localizations. Erin's Gabby reminded me a lot of Cynthia's Sora Naegino from Kaleido Star (a Mary Sue character in her own right).

Oh man, my sister just re-watched that series, so I know what you mean, though the voice direction in that show is just terrible. All the performances in that show just sound off, but I won't derail talking about it. Next episode!

Viva Las Pegasus: This was a fun episode. Kinda crazy to hear a classic Ocean VA, Jim Brynes, on the show now as Gladmane. He was probably best known for doing Dr. Light in the "classic" Mega Man cartoon and the crazy "FOR THE COLONY!" Inferno in Beast Wars. Having AJ and Fluttershy work with the Flim-Flams were great to see. Really liked the Xanatos gambit at the end too. Nice to way to subvert expectations.

Every Little Thing She Does: I was kind of expecting something more along the lines of Lesson Zero where we'd really see Glimmer snap, but if anything, this was like a mix between Sorcerer's Apprentice and Lesson Zero. They really nailed the creepiness factor of the mind control ponies. And as said, I can appreciate the development of Glimmer's character. She's not just suddenly good. She's making an effort, but she still has the same flawed thinking that made her a villain.

So there all caught up. Looking at the next episode, and sorry if this has been mentioned already, but from the description, it seems like it's a nod to the BTAS episode P.O.V.. I love Rashomon type stories, so I'm really looking forward to the next episode. Once again Sigmasonic, thanks for your media roundup posts. They're really appreciated.

Also, probably more community related, but while I'm at, just earlier I had gotten a comment for an old Pony video I made a LONG time ago, a Prisoner/MLP mashup. First time I had seen my work in a while. It's just crazy to me that I made it work using ONLY Season 1 episodes.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Note that Legend of Everfree officially releases in the US tomorrow. Discussion of it can go without spoiler tags then. I'll probably create separate followup posts for the episode and the movie, on different days.

Legend of Everfree soundtrack now officially on YouTube
Guardians of Harmony Cheese Sandwich (+party cannon) and Giant Spike now on Amazon

The writers for "PPOV" are the Fox Brothers. Let's hope "Applejack's 'Day' Off" was an outlier and this is much better.

Why can't we have an episode where the lesson is "Saying sorry sometimes isn't enough"

In universe, every character that asked for forgiveness and was given it was genuinely regretful. I'm sure there were times Discord gave false apologies and the others didn't buy it.

Out of universe, at the target age for the show, you can't very well complicate the lesson on asking for forgiveness by saying that even if you do, you may not get it. That could just make them hide stuff they did wrong.

Though I am reminded of the fansubbed Japanese dub of "Putting Your Hoof Down" (season 2, Iron Will episode), which changed one of Assertive Fluttershy's lines to, "If sorry was enough, we wouldn't need the police!" IIRC, she says this to her gardener that overwaters her lawn.

Another two months, another big catchup post. You might be asking "What keeps you from watching the episodes?" well a bunch of things. My sister, who lives with me, and I have very different schedules and MLP is one of those things we really like watching together, so sometimes my MLP watching can be pushed back until we finally have a chance to catch up together. That and I've been on my computer a lot less which is really my preference for typing out long posts (I also prefer to make meaningful posts that are more than "yeah it was good, I agree".

The Cart Before the Ponies: Honestly the one thing I took from this episode was that C+D'd fan game Pony Kart is canon now! I feel like this is one of those episodes where they seem to dumb down the characters to serve the plot. I couldn't help but think "You ponies REALLY should know better" but otherwise it kinda holds together.

It must be nice watching the episodes with your family for the first watch. I watch the episodes with my family too, but in between seasons and after I watched them myself. As for the Pony Kart game, that wasn't C&D'd, to my knowledge, but rather it was more work than the creators expected and they lost interest.

The Times They Are a Changeling: Honestly I found the song kinda forgettable, even though it's cool that Spike was the focus. Maybe I'm crazy but the ending felt abrupt. I'm going to presume Thorax plays a role in the finale somehow, but it would've been nice if we got more of an idea how.

Dungeons and Discord: Fun episode, but I'd say the thing that bugs me is that it seemed the moral of the episode was "trying new things because you'll probably find them fun in the end" but it seemed so one-sided. What would be so bad about Spike and Big Mac joining Discord for a night out? That seemed like a pretty glaring omission from the episode.

Yeah, the song in the former episode was pretty eh. And in the latter, I hadn't considered the point of Spike and Big Mac not wanting to go for a night out. However, this was a case of Discord forcing it on everyone else.

Viva Las Pegasus: This was a fun episode. Kinda crazy to hear a classic Ocean VA, Jim Brynes, on the show now as Gladmane. He was probably best known for doing Dr. Light in the "classic" Mega Man cartoon and the crazy "FOR THE COLONY!" Inferno in Beast Wars. Having AJ and Fluttershy work with the Flim-Flams were great to see. Really liked the Xanatos gambit at the end too. Nice to way to subvert expectations.

Every Little Thing She Does: I was kind of expecting something more along the lines of Lesson Zero where we'd really see Glimmer snap, but if anything, this was like a mix between Sorcerer's Apprentice and Lesson Zero. They really nailed the creepiness factor of the mind control ponies. And as said, I can appreciate the development of Glimmer's character. She's not just suddenly good. She's making an effort, but she still has the same flawed thinking that made her a villain.

Oh, he was Inferno? I hadn't realized. As for Starlight snapping, I'm thinking they avoided that because we kind of already saw that in "The Cutie Re-Mark" and the end of "The Cutie Map".

So there all caught up. Looking at the next episode, and sorry if this has been mentioned already, but from the description, it seems like it's a nod to the BTAS episode P.O.V.. I love Rashomon type stories, so I'm really looking forward to the next episode. Once again Sigmasonic, thanks for your media roundup posts. They're really appreciated.

Also, probably more community related, but while I'm at, just earlier I had gotten a comment for an old Pony video I made a LONG time ago, a Prisoner/MLP mashup. First time I had seen my work in a while. It's just crazy to me that I made it work using ONLY Season 1 episodes.

Rashomon style episodes are common, so I doubt it's a reference to BTAS specifically.

That PMV was good. And yeah, early PMV makers were really economical, and had some clever recontextualizations of scenes. This did lead to a lot of stuff repeated between videos. Back in the day, one reason I was looking forward to season 2 was that there would finally be some new footage to use, and I was subsequently disappointed when (1) the number of PMVs fell, and (2) they still mostly stuck to season 1 stuff anyway. And nowadays, PMV makers seem to prefer to make custom scenes to match lyrics instead of trying to find an existing scene that kind of but not quite fits.

 

[DemWalls]

The writers for "PPOV" are the Fox Brothers. Let's hope "Applejack's 'Day' Off" was an outlier and this is much better.

Oh well, a post on /mlp/ some time ago made me notice that the premise itself seems flawed, but now my expectations are just at rock bottom. No offense, but judging from their output until now, they may very well be the least talented writers who ever worked on the show. And I don't even consider Day Off that bad (it's The Gift that really rubs me the wrong way), but I certainly see how it's a low tier episode. Anyway, I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong.

 

[PaulloDEC]

Oh well, a post on /mlp/ some time ago made me notice that the premise itself seems flawed, but now my expectations are just at rock bottom. No offense, but judging from their output until now, they may very well be the least talented writers who ever worked on the show. And I don't even consider Day Off that bad (it's The Gift that really rubs me the wrong way), but I certainly see how it's a low tier episode. Anyway, I'll be more than happy to be proven wrong.

I'm actually the other way around, I really enjoyed Gift but found Day Off to be one of the least interesting episodes in the history of the show.

I guess this one could go either way for both of us!

 

[DemWalls]

I'm actually the other way around, I really enjoyed Gift but found Day Off to be one of the least interesting episodes in the history of the show.

I guess this one could go either way for both of us!

Yes, I certainly am in the minority in this. In general, Gift is not badly regarded, but I just didn't appreciate it.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I've commented before that "The Gift of Maud Pie" was largely carried by things that would be added at the voice acting and storyboarding stages, notably the way in which Rarity imitated Pinkie. Once you take that away, it isn't that far off from how boring "Applejack's 'Day' Off" was. But I've also said that the long section in the latter episode just of Applejack walking around the spa feels like filler for something that was removed. If "PPOV" didn't have something cut out of it, it should be better than that episode at least.

Legend of Everfree will be up on US Netflix soon, if it isn't already. Apparently the Brazilian version cut some stuff for time, while the Netflix version doesn't, so I guess that's one benefit of waiting.

And while I'm here, Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Early Birds, featuring Dougworld. The vector that Silver Quill uses for Dougworld Pinkie's front face is weird looking, but I think this comic is one of his better ones.

 

[Sciz]

Legend of Everfree will be up on US Netflix soon, if it isn't already. Apparently the Brazilian version cut some stuff for time, while the Netflix version doesn't, so I guess that's one benefit of waiting.

Spoiler

Hm. Wonder what exactly they cut. There's a couple straight up logic errors related to Timber in the BR run that've been bothering me that could certainly use further development. Guess I'll have to pick through it again.

 

[Owlowiscious]

Legends of everfree

Spoiler

was really good. I mean it's kiddy stuff nothing spectactular but I think the animation is different? And the style was slightly changed? It just looks really good. And I saw it in high def I don't remember if I saw low def for the other movies. At the end Netflix started showing low def because of streaming so it did look almost like prior but I could still tell there are quality and style improvements.

Or maybe it's the fourth time seeing them so I'm used to eq style now?

 

[DemWalls]

Okay, dat AJ is enough to declare this episode better than the other two.

 

[draetenth]

Alright episode (I found Gift and AJ's day off to be better).

-Animation/facial expressions and interactions between continues to be good

- Freaky sea beast thing

I honestly thought they when overboard and too out of character with the ponies. Yeah, I know it's supposed to from a certain pov and how they view things is going to be different - especially when events were clouding their judgment, but still it was ridiculous how the other two ponies would be acting...

 

[ZealousD]

The obligatory Rashomon tribute episode. Every cartoon has one!

 

[SigmasonicX]

That was a decent episode, but it had the big flaw that they played their hand too early: Pirate Applejack was way funnier than the other stories. Next funniest was Jet Setter Rarity, with her tossing aside the sandwiches randomly, and last was Applejack's story. So it went in decreasing order of interest.

I'm of two minds of the fact that what really happened is something that was impossible to figure out with the information given. On one hand, I found it amusing, it resulted in Rarity saying, "Our friend the Bunyip," and it's nice to have a new creature after so long. On the other, it's rarely a good thing to present a mystery and make it impossible for the audience to figure out. But back to the first hand, the cause of the waves wasn't part of the mystery, and the fact that it wasn't really anyone's fault was easy enough to figure out.

I'm glad that we didn't get a full recollection of what really happened, since I don't think that was necessary.

Also, Rarity seriously excavated a sunken treasure and used it to eat ice cream out of. Gems really are worthless in ponyland.

 

[DemWalls]

The obligatory Rashomon tribute episode. Every cartoon has one!

Not the first time I read a comment like this one today, and I honestly didn't know this was a thing. Of course I'm familiar with Kurosawa's movie, but I didn't know it was so widely parodied in the cartoon sphere.

What are some other examples?

EDIT: Just saw this, nice bit of foreshadowing, if you can call it that: