Support NeoGAF

[Conkersbadfurday]

Solid new episode. I really enjoyed the meta commentary, and given that I've seen and been apart of tearing a piece of work down, I kind of understand some of the catharsis here, assuming I'm even reading that right.

Fandoms get fucking wild and stupid.

It's funny because where as episode 100 was all about embracing the brony fandom, this one seems like it's the opposite. We got our sweet, and now we get the salty. There's good to be found, but some crazy fuckers too.

I felt like I laughed a lot, even if some of the jokes were maybe at my own expense. I'm fine with that though.

My problems with the episode were minor, like Twilight rooting around and finding this ratty old book that's apparently super important to her. That's very inconsistent with her character. No Spike was also strange, but as someone said above, he was probably subbed out in place of Starlight.

Oh, and I liked the song even if it felt shoehorned in.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Solid new episode. I really enjoyed the meta commentary, and given that I've seen and been apart of tearing a piece of work down, I kind of understand some of the catharsis here, assuming I'm even reading that right.

Fandoms get fucking wild and stupid.

It's funny because where as episode 100 was all about embracing the brony fandom, this one seems like it's the opposite. We got our sweet, and now we get the salty. There's good to be found, but some crazy fuckers too.

I felt like I laughed a lot, even if some of the jokes were maybe at my own expense. I'm fine with that though.

My problems with the episode were minor, like Twilight rooting around and finding this ratty old book that's apparently super important to her. That's very inconsistent with her character. No Spike was also strange, but as someone said above, he was probably subbed out in place of Starlight.

Oh, and I liked the song even if it felt shoehorned in.

I saw someone suggest that this was perhaps the original plan for episode 100, though that doesn't really fit the timeline of when Larson was brought on to write "Slice of Life".

It indeed was a funny episode, and I expect will be well regarded once all this confusion dies down. I'm fine with laughing at my own expense, but it does bother me that I'm not sure that's what they were actually going for, and what they're considering acceptable.

About Starlight playing Spike's role, that would mean Rarity's bad treatment and only the fillies really understanding the message of the Journal was in Larson's version of the script. Which means most of the "anti-fan" stuff was in the original. Perhaps the updated script added specific call outs to things fans complain about while the original was vaguer, and that's what Larson's distancing himself from.

Equestria Girls Summertime Shorts
Shake Things Up - Oh, an Applejack song? Didn't expect that. So she works at a juice store and not her farm? The whistling part sounds really familiar. Spicing up her job with music and fancy tricks doesn't seem like something she'd be particularly interested in. Rainbow, sure, but not Applejack. Still, a fun enough short.

The Art of Friendship - Note this upload has a bit of an audio desync. The normal guys forgot to record it. The MLP theme again! Will every Boulder Media short do that? Pinkie's bird costume and destructive drumming were funny. I don't believe sunflowers are that detailed in Dougworld. Huh, I guess SunPie is a thing now. This was alright.

 

[Orcastar]

This episode taught me that there is no such thing as poor writing or inconsistent characterisation, there are only flawed characters.

 

[Conkersbadfurday]

Equestria Girls Summertime Shorts
Shake Things Up - Oh, an Applejack song? Didn't expect that. So she works at a juice store and not her farm? The whistling part sounds really familiar. Spicing up her job with music and fancy tricks doesn't seem like something she'd be particularly interested in. Rainbow, sure, but not Applejack. Still, a fun enough short.

She's working way too hard for getting paid minimum wage. Also did she just throw grass in one of those smoothies?

 

[SigmasonicX]

This episode taught me that there is no such thing as poor writing or inconsistent characterisation, there are only flawed characters.

I don't think they're trying to say that they, the writers, have never made mistakes with the characters, but rather they're addressing how the characters intentionally have flaws and how, well, they're not perfect.

She's working way too hard for getting paid minimum wage. Also did she just throw grass in one of those smoothies?

That would be wheatgrass, which is a big health fad, and tastes fine in a smoothie.

Also,

Guys, I'm starting to think these ponies might be too cute. Especially that Fluttershy / Rainbow double wink. FlutterDash, ApplePie, RariLight.

 

[Chained Prometheus]

The Art of Friendship - Note this upload has a bit of an audio desync. The normal guys forgot to record it. The MLP theme again! Will every Boulder Media short do that? Pinkie's bird costume and destructive drumming were funny. I don't believe sunflowers are that detailed in Dougworld. Huh, I guess SunPie is a thing now. This was alright.

... That makes the Legend of Everfree blooper reel even more hilarious.

But seriously, if we do see more SunPie in this stuff, I guess I'll deal with SciTwi/Timber being a thing.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Fame and Misfortune Review/Analysis by Sylvee

A couple months back Mitch Aaron Larson participated in an interview conducted by the group Roundtable is Magic where he talked about, among many other things, an upcoming episode in season 7 that was credited to him but he sort of downplayed his involvement with it. After all Larson writing a Season 7 episode is a bit unusual because he formally left the show back in season 5 and to my knowledge hasn't returned. The fact that this episode came roughly two years after his tenure with DHX had ended and his previous comments distancing himself from making the episode bring up a lot of questions to me. The most chief among them being how much Larson actually had to do with creating this episode and who else helped make it. The prospect of one of the older writers coming up with some episode concept and then someone else actually making the episode isn't anything new, in fact half of the episodes from season 6 had different credits for the story creator (the person that came up with the concept) and the teleplay creator. (The person that actually wrote the episode) Which makes it confusing to me as to why this episode was only credited to Larson when it clearly had changes made to it by other people. Although it's hardly relevant in terms of the episode's actual quality I'm really curious as to why this is the case.

At any rate although it's almost impossible to figure all of that stuff out without the people who created the episode coming out and setting the record strait there's definitely two major aspects of the episode that reek of someone coming along later and making adjustments to the episode. The first (and one that a huge chunk of people have already picked up on) is the prominent inclusion of Starlight. As I said before Larson left the show back in Season 5, and although Starlight was a character and I strongly suspect that the writers had intentions of making her a main character even at that point it doesn't make sense for Larson to be writing an episode that featured her given that she didn't turn good until the end of the season, which would mean he would be writing the episode with the intent of it being released in a later season after he would have left the show. It makes way more sense that the role that she filled in the episode was originally intended for Spike and was changed later to be Starlight instead, which is further supported by the fact that Spike is entirely absent in the episode.

Although I think most can agree that this was a change that happened I think it's important to talk about why it happened and whether or not it was the correct choice. For a lot of people when they hear that after the main creator of something finished it and someone else came behind them and made a bunch of changes it's usually assumed that it's corporate meddling ruining the original creator's vision. I feel like it's an easy narrative to believe that all of the great parts about this episode were originally written by Larson and all of the issues that it had were due to whoever came along later and made changes to it. However I think it's important to look past that narrative and examine each instance of it in a case-by-case basis because this kind of thing when done right can be a benefit. In the case of Starlight's inclusion here you have to ask the question of what the original intent behind the move and whether or not it actually detracted from the episode's quality.

For the intent I think it's fairly obvious. Starlight Glimmer has been a character that the writers have been trying to push ever since her reformation a season ago. She had 3 episodes and both of the two-parters from season 6 where she was the lead character and at this point the overarching story that the show currently has is based on Starlight developing as a character. However I feel like the biggest problem she had in season 6 was that she was either the center of attention or almost entirely absent. Because of this she doesn't really feel like she's part of the group to me. The Mane 6 hasn't become the Mane 7 but rather the Mane 6 still exists but is largely being pushed in the background so Starlight has a chance to shine. And I just don't think that is the best way of going about her character. If she remains her own thing separate from the Mane 6 then the two will always be competing for relevancy. What I believe is the best course of action for her is to try and integrate her into the group so she can work together with them narratively speaking rather then competing. And the best way of doing that is by having her play more supporting roles in episodes, especially ones with characters that she hasn't really had a whole lot of interactions with. Season 7 has done a better job of this with her role in Rock Solid Friendship and A Royal Problem but this episode marks the first time that we can visibly tell that an episode was rewritten to give her a role in it which might set a troubling precedent. However I think that the concept is solid. These kinds of roles where she is present and potentially interacting with the Mane 6 helps make her feel like she's one of the group as well as helping flesh out her character more.

I said "potentially" because unfortunately once again the only person we really see Starlight interact with is Twilight, who she's already talked to plenty. It's not a wasted opportunity by any means though. We saw a bit of it in All Bottled Up but this is the best example so far of Starlight's vindictiveness that we saw back in The Cutie Re-Mark when she was a villain. One of the main reasons why I've always been so fascinated with Starlight as a character is that she feels like she still has the same general personality and quirks that she had pre-reformation so it was nice seeing that side of her again. However due to her being in a supporting role there's an odd scene where Rarity runs off after overhearing some ponies being mean to her and Starlight says that she's going to give them a piece of her mind in a really angry tone. Given Starlight's previous attempt at trying to get back at people for wronging her or people she cares about my first reaction was "oh man what is she going to do to them?" but the scene ends with her walking towards them and then the scene ends. I understand that the episode didn't have time to devote to her talk with them and she doesn't need to do something crazy in retaliation but it just strikes me as weird that the show doesn't seem self-aware about how this could easily backfire. Even just having the two ponies acting scared of Starlight in a later scene would have been a nice gag, like a later scene where she starts levitating some dude she's yelling at and then when she lowers him he sprints away immediately. Obviously this is a pretty massive nitpick but I just feel like there was lost potential for a funny gag there.

As a whole I don't think that her presence here was exceptional I think it's a sign that the writers understand that her lack of supporting roles was a problem and are looking to remedy it which is a comforting notion. Additionally I don't really think that the episode suffers from her inclusion over Spike. Although there might have been some funny (or forced) gags about how Spike was completely ignored despite being in the journal as well I think that having a 3rd party that the fans would have no reason to care about helps. With Spike the question would be raised as to why they didn't care as much about him whereas with Starlight the reason as to why is a lot easier to accept.

The other major element of the episode that stuck out to me as being odd was the song. The actual lyrics and themes of the song just don't seem to relate at all to the issues that the fans were having. The main issue from what I could tell is that the fans were obsessing over the Mane 6 and their "characters" rather then understanding the morals and lessons that were the point of the book being made in the first place. The song on the other hand was talking about how the Mane 6 weren't perfect and their imperfections help define who they are. The two have almost nothing to do with each other. On top of that the song's lyrics were credited to both M.A. Larson and Daniel Ingram which to my knowledge is highly unusual as usually the lyrics are entirely credited to the episode's writer. Those things lead me to believe that either the song was written by Larson and that its themes made more sense with the original script he wrote but the episode was later altered so the song didn't make as much sense and wasn't changed to reflect the changes, or the song originally wasn't in the episode to begin with and was largely written by Daniel who might not be as experienced tying songs into the themes of the episode iteself. (Which would explain why Daniel was given credit for the lyrics when he usually isn't outside of the credits songs for the EQG movies)

Moving on to the episode proper there's unfortunately some more mixed messages on display. The episode itself makes several meta references to the show's fandom and many of the common complaints that viewers have had. The people making these comments are generally depicted as insensitive and completely missing the point of the book. Due to how many of the things that they're saying (such as saying that Fluttershy just learns the same lesson repeatedly or that Twilight was better without wings) are common complaints I feel like the most logical conclusion to make assuming you're looking at this episode in a vacuum is that the episode is claiming that taking the show seriously is missing the point of the show and that everyone should only be focused on the morals. However looking at the show as a whole I can only assume that the moral was just poorly executed. The show creators have always gone out of their way to please diehard fans of the show with episodes like Slice of Life and characters like Derpy. I don't think that the intent was to say that people who obsess over the characters are wrong but rather that people that spend most of their time arguing with other people about these characters while being insensitive to others feelings and ignoring the show's morals are wrong. However the episode itself does not make the distinction and every character that talks about the book aside from the two little girls who take the morals seriously are shown in a negative light. Although it didn't bother me as much as others I can to a certain extent understand people that felt like the episode was mean-spirited towards them or felt like they were being attacked. I feel like perhaps having a couple of characters that were discussing the characters themselves but were shown in a more positive light could have helped a bit but I feel like dispensing of showing any nuance might have been a conscious decision as I feel like trying to distinguish good behavior from bad ones while at the same time trying to indicate that people should be taking the morals themselves seriously would have probably made things a bit too busy and complex.

The second moral directed towards creators of art I feel was handled a bit better. In the episode Twilight shows regret for casting the spell, blaming herself for all of the horrible things that the fans did. The response to this is Starlight saying that she didn't do anything wrong publishing the book and that all of the problems are entirely the reader's fault for missing the point of the book. Initially when I first heard Starlight said that I was imagining that Starlight was probably giving Twilight unsound advice that might make things worse since that's a pretty consistent character trait of hers. But looking back at those lines I think it's clear that the writers intended for Starlight to be 100% in the right with those statements, which doesn't completely sit right with me. However at the end of the episode I think they do a much better job at explaining what they are really going for: as long as you're making a difference in some people's lives it's alright that many of the people that read/watch your content don't take away what you want from it. Additionally you might not be able to fully control how people react to your works but you can control how you let them affect you. I feel like the target audience for that moral is a bit narrow but the message overall is something I can get behind.

The episode itself has a fairly weak opening 3rd in my opinion. Right off the bat the first scene is rough in pretty much every regard. The voice actors that they pulled in to play Toola Roola and Coconut Cream sound off, Coconut especially. The way she says "ex-friend" sounds so unnatural. The visuals are a mess of neon colors between the two fillies' color schemes and all of the ice cream. And the dialogue itself does nothing to help the scene. It unfortunately is the worst scene in the episode and since the beginning should be getting you interested in the story to come that's not a good thing.

The following scenes of the friendship journal book being distributed are largely exposition to set up the rest of the episode. I dug some of the gags with how each of the Mane 6 wrote into the book like Fluttershy writing so tiny that no one could read it because she wanted to save room for others. However the episode overall kinda suffers from a problem that is often present in Mane 6 focused episodes, the "my turn" form of storytelling. That meaning that every single time there's a scenario introduced, every character has to have their own version/reaction. For example when Rainbow is looking through the journal many of the jokes make sense, like Fluttershy's aforementioned writing and Rarity using calligraphy. But AJ just leaving a rotten apple in one of the pages (and no one else noticing it and taking it out) and Rainbow tearing up the pages on her entries just feel like they're there so every one of the Mane 6 gets a joke. A lot of the jokes that end up falling flat in this episode feel like they're only there so each member gets their own part. One of the positives of this form of storytelling is that each of the characters feels like they're actually playing a role in the story (many of the Mane 6 episodes that don't follow this format have several characters that have next to no agency through the whole episode) but on the other hand there are often weak scenes and lines of dialogue that have to be kept in so each character plays their part even if they don't make much sense.

Once the journal is distributed we get into the meat of the story which is the how the release of the book negatively affects the Mane 6, with their struggles often being tied to how the actual fans of the show react to the characters. Twilight gets the least amount of attention in that regard with just a couple remarks about how she's not as cool as other characters and that she was better without wings. Overall though she spends most the episode later on being sad that her idea is negatively affecting her friends as well as being annoyed that no one is getting the point of the book. We don't really see how this personally affects her but I don't think that's overall a bad thing. She did get the best meme face in the episode though.

Rainbow's problems are probably the most predictable out of the batch. One thing that struck me as weird with the foals asking Dash about the Daring Do story is that Twilight was also there for most of that adventure and yet at no point does the script acknowledge it. I was expecting at some point for Rainbow to go "hey you should ask my friend Twilight she was there too" and for the kids to comment on how uncool Twilight is or something like that but the reference wasn't made. Also I find it funny that all of the people that liked Rainbow were little kids. I hope that was actually intentional.

Pinkie kinda bothered me at times. My main issue was with the delivery of her lines. A couple times in the episode she just shouted her lines for seemingly no reason, like when she was saying that her days of being funny are over. As for her actual dilemma it was alright I guess? I dunno. One thing I will say is that I liked when she was talking with Twilight and Twilight pauses after one of her sentences to see if the crowd would laugh and sulks away when they don't.

Fluttershy I felt was a standout character here. Tying back into this episode having a lot of meta references her problem of people feeling like she wasn't developing fast enough as a character is a very common complaint that her character has had over the years. And I would say that it was actually handled very well. She explains that she has actually grown quite a bit as a character over the years and that expecting her to just learn her lesson after one time is unreasonable. I feel like it was effective at addressing the criticism that the character has gotten over the years and moreover I felt like her showing here was a much better way of showing her character growth then the episode Fluttershy Leans In as it didn't feel like it was beating us over the head with that message and served a purpose other then just showing her growth.

Rarity was my favorite character in the episode, although she brings up a couple issues that I feel the episode had. With all the other characters I've covered so far most of the reactions that the book readers had to them are somewhat in line with reactions that the show's fans have had. Rarity's on the other hand is entirely manufactured for this story. I have never heard of any fan (outside of ones that never got past the first half of the first season) complaining about how Rarity is too stuck up or that her lessons she learns are unrealistic. I feel like these were complaints that were made up by the writers to have a reason for the fans to be mad at Rarity so they could show her freaking out over it. I personally felt that it was totally worth it because this was definitely one of the better Rarity freakouts we've seen. (I loved her saying that she was wearing her emotions) But at the same time having this manufactured "fan" complaint about Rarity being juxtaposed next to actually legit complaints (legit in that they are ones that people use, not ones that I think are true) like Pinkie being one-note or Fluttershy not learning anything sends the wrong message and can confuse people. Also it sort of goes without saying at this point but Tabitha's performance is once again spectacular. Her breadth of emotions she can do is extremely impressive.

And lastly we have Applejack who similar to Rarity feels like her issues are largely manufactured rather then being ones that fans of the show have. I feel like the main criticism that Applejack usually gets is that she's a fairly low-impact character that doesn't do that much usually. (Which is why there's so many background pony jokes about her) I feel like people acting like she isn't important would have made more sense but my best guess is that they wanted the fans to have a positive reaction to AJ since they had a negative one for Rarity and Fluttershy as well as Twilight to an extent and wanted to balance things out to avoid the fans becoming too negative. Similarly to Rarity I've never heard anyone say "man with AJ I feel like I'm part of her family I wish I could be an Apple," it just feels like something they went for because they wanted people to like her. As a result AJ's problems just feel extremely disconnected and it's hard to really care about them.

Lastly I want to talk about the most hated "character" of the episode: the fans themselves. In the show's universe the citizens of Ponyville and the ones from Equestria that traveled to Ponyville to see the Mane 6 are portrayed horribly. They obsess over things that they shouldn't. They are inconsiderate as to how their words and actions affect others. And they're shown to be irrational. Admittedly this isn't the first episode where the random citizens of Ponyville/Equestria act like assholes to drive the plot forward but just because they've done it before doesn't make it ok. But on top of that these people are supposed to be analogs for some of the show's fans which can come off as mean-spirited for some. It didn't affect me much personally (especially since the worst offenders were people we haven't seen before unlike something like Princess Spike which had characters like Fancy Pants causing the problems) but for a lot of people I could understand why this would be a dealbreaker.

As for the song, I've already explained why it felt out of place but despite that glaring problem I thought it was really good. The music sounded wonderful. The lyrics, although unfitting in the context of the episode, flowed well and told a good message. And the animation was really cool to watch even though they recycled a couple scenes, a trend that has become surprisingly more common the past couple seasons. Even with the recycling and the dubious relevance to the story it was my favorite song of the season so far (although the songs generally haven't been stellar so that's not a major accomplishment)

As a whole the presentation was fairly adequate with the exception of the song where they went above and beyond for me. Overall there wasn't much in the plot that would dictate anything fancy and aside from the designs of Toola Roola and Coconut Cream the episode looked fairly good. Voice acting wise I already pointed out that I didn't like the delivery of some of Pinkie's lines although that's largely the direction given to her I feel. The child actor they got for Rainbow's admiring fan was actually pretty good which is why it's surprising to me that the ones they got for the more prominent child characters were way worse. As per usual I don't think that Fluttershy sounds natural when she's angry so a couple of times she sounded a bit spotty. As for good performances I already said Rarity was fantastic but I feel like Ashleigh Ball did a fairly good job with AJ in this episode. She pulled off her stressed out demeanor fairly well. And as per usual Tara Strong and Kelly Sheridan performed strongly.

Overall I found the episode to be a lot of fun once it got going. There's certainly a plethora of issues with the episode but most of them didn't bother me too much and the stuff that worked for me REALLY worked. Once you get past the major issues like the moral of the episode (which I think was largely caused out of mistakes rather then it being a deliberate attack) and the fans acting horrible I think there's a lot to like here and I believe it's a fairly solid entry in what's been a strong season so far.

 

[SigmasonicX]

^ Ah, I thought this would happen. I'll read and respond to all that later.

"Fame and Misfortune" followup. It's kind of weird going back to there not already being a huge backlog of fan art. The pattern I was falling into before all the early airings was one followup now, then another fanart collection on Friday, so I guess I'll go back to that.

NOTES
New song: "Flawless". By the way, I've been misquoting it in my posts this entire time. Whoops. Also, for some reason, the song reminds me of the part of "Welcome to the Show" where the heroes do their magical girl transformation.

ED's followup points out the commonly noted fact that the ones who understand the lessons of the Journal are the little girls that are the actual target audience (though that's undermined by the kids who rip out Twilight's parts of the Journal and try to join the Apple Family), but I hadn't thought of how the use of Toola Roola, a G3 pony who even looks very close to her G3.5 design, might be a deliberate reflection of how G4 fans dismiss G3 even without knowing much about it. Now, I actually did watch most of G3, so I'm completely comfortable dismissing it; even so, I do appreciate some aspects of it.

Also from that followup, the manifesto that Starlight mentioned having to copy was this.

The followup misidentifies the event that triggers everyone's anger at Rarity as the Ponyville Days comic arc (issues #30-31), but I'm pretty sure it's season 4's "Simple Ways", which also involved the Ponyville Days celebration. I also think it stretches to connect parts of the episode to particular things fans do, when that wasn't likely the intention.

Incidentally, this screenshot shows that there are Rarity fans mixed in the crowds too. Also, Lyra and Bon Bon.

Though We Are Borg is playing it up for humor, this confusion about whether the show creators are actually OK with people analyzing the show and criticizing it, or if the point of the episode is to get people to stop doing that altogether, is disappointing. Like I've mentioned before, this does remind me a lot of the reaction to season 1's "Feeling Pinkie Keen", which everyone thought had an anti-science message. It all happened before I joined the fandom, but I read the reactions here and elsewhere. I recall that the show crew were quick to assure fans that wasn't their intention, but as far as I can tell, no one but Larson has really said anything about this one yet. Larson distancing himself plus the lack of response from others really isn't helping things.

Now for stuff not connected to ED's followup, let's talk about upcoming episodes that might follow up on this episode. "Daring Done" involves Daring Do retiring, and some are hoping that the Journal confirming she's real has to do with that. Though note that I'm pretty sure Rainbow's entry from "Daring Don't" doesn't mention AK Yearling, so I don't think that secret was revealed. "Once Upon a Zeppelin" involves Twilight being bothered by ponies who want to meet her, and while that will mainly be about Twilight being a princess, I imagine we'll see her have to sign more Friendship Journals.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, there is only one song left in this season. We're just a bit more than halfway through the season, so I kind of wonder if this wasn't actually planned out, and Ingram was forced to remove songs from episodes that originally had them in the second half. That said, this episode offers an explanation: "Flawless" failing upset the girls so much that they don't feel like singing for the rest of the season! Until the triumphant finale.

With the knowledge that this episode was altered from Larson's original, a lot of people have been doing detective work to identify odd things that might be remnants. Some I've seen are:
* After the Journal is published, Starlight can easily be swapped out with Spike. This implies that her scenes involving Rarity and getting those two fillies were in the original.
* Rainbow implies her job involves clearing the skies, and no one mentions her being in the Wonderbolts. This implies her scene with the fillies on the cloud was in the original.
* Fluttershy cowering seems out of character for her current self (it doesn't for me, but I digress), so people are saying that was in the original, and the part with her standing up for herself was added in later.

This implies that, after the Journal is published, Larson's original can't actually be that different from what we saw. Same stuff with everyone hating Rarity and the girls failing to convince the fans.

On an unrelated note, a minor thing I hadn't realized: in the scene where Peeved Fluttershy is measured by Rarity (see below), it's because she wants to help Fluttershy wear her emotions.

SCREENSHOTS
The Cloudsdale market is pretty neat
Rarity sees review in newspaper - I didn't notice the 1.5 stars review.
Edit - MLP Movie - But, the future refused to change... (embedded)
Rarity face (embedded)
Caption - Joker Rarity
Rarity hugging her dress while making a face
Rarity stress stitching
Twilight smashed by the door
Rarity wearing her emotions (embedded)
Animation error on mare's face

Song
Rarity sitting on Applejack (embedded)
Psychologist Pinkie
Vector - FlutterDash (embedded)
Pinkie winking during the circle around

YouTube captions
Behind bars
*sigh* I guess I can't argue with the polls
Me too, Rarity *backs away*
I think he'd have big issues with Equestria
Not cool, Coconut Cream

GIFS
Stallion gets sundae
Twilight in ice cream fight
Grumpy Twilight
Rarity running away after hearing bad comments
Cowering Fluttershy
Rarity face GIF
Twilight smashed by a door
Twilight and Starlight noseboop
Peeved Fluttershy getting measured (embedded)
Ponies outside Twilight's castle
Rarity wearing her emotions rocking back and forth
Starlight and Coconut Cream hugging Toola Roola
Group hug

Song
Dramatic Rarity
Endings of the split screen parts put one after another
All the split screen parts put on top of each other
Circling around (embedded)

FAN CONTENT
So liberating not having to (well, "having to") look at upload dates for these anymore.

The Book of Lessons
Rarijack by luminaura - See link for readable text.
Umm...

Applejack and Pinkie by nekro-led
Toola Roola and Coconut Cream by kindny-chan
Stress Couture

I Still Ship You!
Starlight is not dealing with your BS today
Sure I can be a drama queen...

Not Flawless by saturdaymorningproj

The Perfect Pear
Treasured Moment
Quiet You - Didn't get it at first, but it's comparing the deliveries of this same line.
Bronycon print by sugarwings
Fall in love

A Royal Problem
Standing
Darkest Before the Dawn

The Movie
Capper by nekocrispy
Songbird Serenade by flutterthrash
Flutterdash Seaponies

Other
Hard to Say Anything - Pony Grappling
EQG Summertime Shorts - Monday Blues

Comics
Manifesto - Real reason Starlight learned that spell.
For a Reason - Why Dash doesn't like all this attention.

Rock Solid Friendship - Flight of the Unicorns

Remixes
[MLP FiM x Megaman X] Flawless (MegaPony Remix) - As far as I can tell, this is the only "Flawless" remix so far, but I like it a lot. Could be a great final boss theme.

Best Friends Until The End Of Time (Metal/Djent Cover) - Last week, this is the remix I mentioned that erased "In My Head Like a Catchy Song" from my head.
"Battle For Sugar Belle" Gender Swap Cover (AshleyH) - Oh, there was a cover of this song after all! And it's pretty decent.
Mad Twience (cover by Elias Frost) - I think I prefer this over the original, particularly with the "P-E-R-F-E-C-T" being done by a computer voice.
Dance Magic (Delta Brony Remix) - This is good until the instrumental. It's better when it sticks to the actual lyrics.
In My Head Like A Catchy Song (Reggae Rock Cover) - Really picks up about halfway through.

EDIT:
Daniel Ingram - Best Friends Until the End of Time (Henni Remix)
You're in my head like a catchy song - MLP Piano cover by Matías Peñaloza

 

[ShinySylvee]

Threw in some pictures in the post to make it look more fancy. Feedback (Not just on the opinions but also formatting, structure, actual writing stuff) would be cool since I want to do more of this stuff seriously in the future. Not 100% happy with it but I just kinda wanted to be done with it.

Checked out the two EQG shorts. The Pinkie one was kinda eh aside from the shipping. The Shake one was not that good either. Honestly the show's music sets the bar way too high so all of these short music videos they're doing have to survive largely on the visuals because most of them just don't sound good, and I didn't care for the visuals in the video. (Although to be fair those kinds of shakes gross me out so that's a large part why)

EDIT: There was apparently a music panel at Bronycon where an unreleased verse of We'll Make our Mark was released where Diamond Tiara sung but was cut out of the final version for time constraints. You can check the panel footage with the song here

 

[DemWalls]

Threw in some pictures in the post to make it look more fancy. Feedback (Not just on the opinions but also formatting, structure, actual writing stuff) would be cool since I want to do more of this stuff seriously in the future. Not 100% happy with it but I just kinda wanted to be done with it.

Well, you could try and lower the word count a bit. I'm on mobile, and that post seemed endless 😅

More seriously though, since you cover pretty much everything from story to presentation, you could divide it into subsections - Story, Characters, etcetera. Makes everything clearer.

Anyway, about the songs, Ingram is actually credited as the songwriter along with the episode's writer quite a few times, so it's not really unusual. Sometimes he's even the sole songwriter, Battle for Sugar Belle being the most recent example.

 

[UberTag]

EDIT: There was apparently a music panel at Bronycon where an unreleased verse of We'll Make our Mark was released where Diamond Tiara sung but was cut out of the final version for time constraints. You can check the panel footage with the song here

Time constraints... sure.
And Diamond Tiara was never heard from again.

I miss that little filly. She must have been killed off-screen or something.
Can't they give her an adventure with Starlight Glimmer or Silver Spoon or Derpy or something. Cripes.

That was one hell of a great episode and yet it pretty much stands out as character assassination as she was reduced to complete irrelevancy.

"Oh, you can't be trotted out as an antagonist any more? Well, you're completely useless to us now. Have a good life. Your friends, The MLP Friendship is Magic writer's room."

 

[ShinySylvee]

Well, you could try and lower the word count a bit. I'm on mobile, and that post seemed endless 😅

More seriously though, since you cover pretty much everything from story to presentation, you could divide it into subsections - Story, Characters, etcetera. Makes everything clearer.

Anyway, about the songs, Ingram is actually credited as the songwriter along with the episode's writer quite a few times, so it's not really unusual. Sometimes he's even the sole songwriter, Battle for Sugar Belle being the most recent example.

I was keeping track of characters to make sure I didn't go over the limit. It ended up at around 23500. So yeah it was kinda long I'm not sure how I would go about slimming it down though.

At one point I was thinking of doing that so I could more easily transition between topics but I thought against it due to how different the sizes of each section would have been, which is probably a stupid reason. I kinda tried to have the pictures do double duty of both helping mark transitions to new sections and as visuals to help support my points but it would probably be better to separate my sections better.

Time constraints... sure.
And Diamond Tiara was never heard from again.

I miss that little filly. She must have been killed off-screen or something.
Can't they give her an adventure with Starlight Glimmer or Silver Spoon or Derpy or something. Cripes.

That was one hell of a great episode and yet it pretty much stands out as character assassination as she was reduced to complete irrelevancy.

"Oh, you can't be trotted out as an antagonist any more? Well, you're completely useless to us now. Have a good life. Your friends, The MLP Friendship is Magic writer's room."

To be fair her whole point of existing before was just to cause conflict for the CMC and now that she can't do that her original purpose for existing doesn't work. That being said I'm pretty sure I've said it earlier but at this point the writers really need to sit down and figure out how to have her character be relevant going forward.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

This episode was all over the place thematically. At first I thought they might be going for a "once a creative work is in the wild you don't have control of it anymore; you gotta let it go" lesson, but they went with... something different. It's kind of difficult to extract any kind of meaning to it, since the climactic song addresses basically the criticism Flittershybhas gotten and no one else. There's just no cohesion between the ways that the book affects their lives, as we go from biting criticism to uberpopularity to stalkers and the like.

Good thing the song is amazing. It might just be the afterglow, but I think it might be the best the series has ever had. (Something in the cadence reminded ow my punk, particularly Bad Religion, but I'm not sure why). You even forget for the length of it that they're not actually addressing the episode's main conflict.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I think I'll go without quotes for the big post.

Concerning Larson getting sole credit for this episode, it's very likely some quirk of union rules, nothing more.

I enjoyed seeing Starlight play a large role in an episode without her actually being a major driver of the story, outside of the book copying part that could have been handled without her. Sure, most of it was stuff Spike could have done, but it's sort of like seeing a different actor play the same role and putting their own twist on the lines. Take the part where she confronts one of the ponies pestering Fluttershy, and she casually lifts him up with magic, which freaks him out enough that he silently flees. The same lines could have been said by Spike, but this small moment quickly demonstrates the difference in their characters and how others perceive them. I was fine with the episode cutting away from her talking to those ponies at the restaurant, since it would have been funnier if what she did was left unseen, but it was undermined by them appearing later. Starlight was also very useful as a character that the fans could safely ignore, since she wouldn't be mentioned at all in the Journal.

On the subject of the song not matching up with the rest of the episode, I don't think that's quite right. Remove all the fan references that muddle the mixture, and you're left with the following: ponies consider Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack perfect, and consider Fluttershy and Rarity to be terrible ponies that shouldn't have been in the book. That is to say, they're ignoring all the flaws of the former, and laser focusing on the flaws of the latter.

During the mob scene before the song, they're mostly about questioning why flawed characters are included in the journal. Fans of one character see them as the best and everyone else as the worst. That reporter pony asks Twilight how they can all possibly be friends, and he's implying this is because some of them are too flawed.

That's where the song comes in, with Twilight pointing out that none of them are perfect and all of them have flaws, and none of them are bad because of that. The meta stuff distracts from all that, though, which is why it seems to come out of nowhere.

All in all, I strongly suspect that the fandom jokes were added in on top of a story about looking past and exaggerating flaws, and they didn't think too strongly about how it all came together. I'm sure the idea was to include a few shout outs to get a laugh out of fans, and they failed to realize fans would interpret the episode as speaking out against them. Once you accept that they didn't really mean anything by it, the episode becomes much easier to parse, I find. Particularly regarding Applejack's popularity and Rarity's lack of it.

About the other characters, though I was a bit disappointed that the episode didn't go too much into how other ponies viewed Twilight, I enjoyed how her conflict was based mainly on empathy toward her friends. She was in pain because her friends were. The scene at the beginning with the fillies reminded me a lot of the Cadance flashback from the first part of "A Canterlot Wedding", where she used her love to rekindle the love between two arguing ponies, and serves to demonstrate that yes, she is the princess of friendship now.

With Twilight blaming herself for her friends' problems, it will be a huge shame if they don't follow up on it in another episode. Perhaps in the season finale, Twilight decides to continue writing about the lessons she and her friends learned, having encountered more people that got the right idea and realizing that her song did break through to some of the people in the mob.

I adored the way Fluttershy was handled here. When confronted by angry fans, she cowers, yes, but that's because while she has learned to be less of a doormat, it's still something that takes effort on her part. She was taken by surprise and confused, but once she was able to get her bearings, she was able to stand up for herself perfectly well. And then in the castle, she openly displayed her anger and frustration in front of her friends, showing a level of comfort we didn't see in episodes like "Putting Your Hoof Down" in season 2. I remember that for the longest time, people were saying that they couldn't have Fluttershy not be shy, because then she wouldn't have a character. Seasons 6 and 7 have done a spectacular job demonstrating what Fluttershy is like after coming out of her shell, where she's clearly the same character that prefers to be kind and gentle, but is more comfortable showing her real emotions around her friends, and can be assertive in a safe way.

Rarity was indeed hilarious, and I loved the emphasis on how much her dressmaking reflects her emotional state. Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow were alright. There was just more interesting stuff to be mined from characters reacting to others hating them, rather than loving them too much.

About the song, three of the four songs so far have been hits with fans, so I think they have a pretty good track record this season.

Threw in some pictures in the post to make it look more fancy. Feedback (Not just on the opinions but also formatting, structure, actual writing stuff) would be cool since I want to do more of this stuff seriously in the future. Not 100% happy with it but I just kinda wanted to be done with it.

Checked out the two EQG shorts. The Pinkie one was kinda eh aside from the shipping. The Shake one was not that good either. Honestly the show's music sets the bar way too high so all of these short music videos they're doing have to survive largely on the visuals because most of them just don't sound good, and I didn't care for the visuals in the video. (Although to be fair those kinds of shakes gross me out so that's a large part why)

EDIT: There was apparently a music panel at Bronycon where an unreleased verse of We'll Make our Mark was released where Diamond Tiara sung but was cut out of the final version for time constraints. You can check the panel footage with the song here

In terms of content, for certain subjects, you overexplain things. Take paragraph 4, which could be cut down to this:

For the intent I think it's fairly obvious. Starlight Glimmer has been a character that the writers have been trying to push ever since her reformation a season ago. However I feel like the biggest problem she had in season 6 was that she was either the center of attention or almost entirely absent. Because of this she doesn't really feel like she's part of the group to me. What I believe is the best course of action for her is to try and integrate her into the group so she can work together with them narratively speaking rather then competing. And the best way of doing that is by having her play more supporting roles in episodes, especially ones with characters that she hasn't really had a whole lot of interactions with [which season 7 has already demonstrated].

I cut out sentences where you said the same thing in a different way, or in the case of this being "a troubling precedent", removed an idea that you didn't explore. Note that I didn't change the sentences themselves, except that part I added to the last one, so it perhaps doesn't flow well now.

The only big issue I found with your post was word sprawl, and you can combat it by letting it sit for a while, coming back, and going, "Did I really need that sentence to demonstrate this thought? Should I bring up this idea if I don't explore it?" etc.

Granted, I'm probably guilty of this in my own posts, but an analysis like that is a different sort of content.

Concerning the EQG music videos, a big part of why they don't feel as good and memorable is that there isn't any real emotion or meaning attached to them. Compare to another music video, "Friendship Through the Ages", which was meant to be hopeful, and demonstrated Sunset being accepted into the group. These new ones all just seem like songs for the sake of having songs. I just realized, did Ingram really have time to make all these extra one-off songs with the movie and the show? Do we know for sure he actually wrote them?

About the cut "We'll Make Our Mark" verse, it's nice to hear, but I can see why they removed it. Diamond Tiara just had a solo song, and her feelings about the situation were quite clear from the scene leading into this one. While I did find it odd that she basically disappeared once the song started, I think this is giving her too much focus. Plus, the final song follows the rule of three, with three distinct sections: the CMC singing while marching through town, their "sisters" at the cutecenera, and the CMC singing again at the meeting. Having four sections doesn't feel right. Unless she sang instead of the sisters, in which case, I'm really glad her part was removed.

Time constraints... sure.
And Diamond Tiara was never heard from again.

I miss that little filly. She must have been killed off-screen or something.
Can't they give her an adventure with Starlight Glimmer or Silver Spoon or Derpy or something. Cripes.

That was one hell of a great episode and yet it pretty much stands out as character assassination as she was reduced to complete irrelevancy.

"Oh, you can't be trotted out as an antagonist any more? Well, you're completely useless to us now. Have a good life. Your friends, The MLP Friendship is Magic writer's room."

I really hope she ends up playing a large role in "Marks and Recreations" later this season. It's still baffling that her mother had a much larger role last season than her.

This episode was all over the place thematically. At first I thought they might be going for a "once a creative work is in the wild you don't have control of it anymore; you gotta let it go" lesson, but they went with... something different. It's kind of difficult to extract any kind of meaning to it, since the climactic song addresses basically the criticism Flittershybhas gotten and no one else. There's just no cohesion between the ways that the book affects their lives, as we go from biting criticism to uberpopularity to stalkers and the like.

Good thing the song is amazing. It might just be the afterglow, but I think it might be the best the series has ever had. (Something in the cadence reminded ow my punk, particularly Bad Religion, but I'm not sure why). You even forget for the length of it that they're not actually addressing the episode's main conflict.

My feelings on the first part are in the first part of this post.

And yes, the song is great.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

I like that reading of it, and it's probably the one they were going for. They really didn't stick the landing, though. If they'd wanted to reinforce that theme the pedestalized ponies should not have used "Flawless" to point out that they're good despite their faults, and instead used it to insist that they do have flaws, despite what everyone seems to think.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Just rewatched "The Crystalling" (yes, finally got around to rewatching season 6), and I noticed that Sunburst actually namedrops every Legends of Magic / "Campfire Tales" character. I'm surprised they planned that far ahead with them. Oddly, he references them in the context of "Rockhoof's (such and such) spell", even though many of them aren't unicorns. Maybe they're spells inspired by them.

In the news, The National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) is hosting an event about The Dragons on Dazzle Island, the picture book by Mary Jane Begin, on August 26, where she will talk about her work. The museum is in Rhode Island, for anyone interested. The art in her books has been fantastic, aside from the actual ponies being based on the toys instead of the show, so it should be worthwhile.

If you recall my September comic solicitations post, I included only one cover for the last Movie Prequel comic, as opposed to the usual two, and it was the B cover. Well here's the A cover!

It's a reference to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster. It's pretty neat, and here's the cover at full size.

When I was looking for that post, I remembered thre was supposed to be an anti-BronyCon march. Did that ever happen?

Paley Centers in New York and Beverly Hills are having a My Little Pony film festival on September 23. The event lasts three hours, and they plan on showing something from G1, FiM, and EQG. I imagine that will be a G1 TV special or the movie, a FiM two parter, and one of the EQG movies, respectively. But an interesting thing can be found on the promotional image.

We've seen that outfit on Pinkie before: from the Hasbro investor slide that announced the Equestria Girls series! Here's my post about it. And note, Pinkie's in a different pose than in the slide! Some people have suggested that this might be EQG Pinkie's new default outfit, meaning Dash's outfit in the slide is also her new default. I'm not ready to say they're better than their current outfits, but it is nice to see more variety in the girls' default outfits if this is true.

ED interview with Felicia Day.
* She first learned of the show through hearing about bronies years ago at DragonCon.
* Best pony is Fluttershy.
* She was given a scratch track of her song in the show, and she was intimidated because the temporary singer had a great voice.
* She got the job through Twitter.
* She recorded her lines in LA, and she was pregnant at the time. She recorded separately from William Shatner as a result; she didn't even realize he was costarring until they started recording.
* She wasn't aware that Patton Oswalt guest starred too; she's going to watch that episode.

Equestria Girls Summertime Shorts - Epic Fail
This apparently popped up On Demand already, so here it is. Given that the previous weeks had two shorts on Saturday, yet this Saturday only had one, maybe there was a mix up involving this.

This is what one of the UK comics adapted a while ago. That proceeded to have scenes from other shorts, so I assumed that was just a framing device, but I guess not. I hope this isn't a recap special.

Well, it's not a recap. The epic fail symbol at first looked like Japanese and I thought they weren't using the right visuals, but no, it's a face. Anyway, the epic fails themselves are pretty boring. Sunset and Rarity in the library had fun expressions, at least.

This is actually pretty nicely timed with "Fame and Misfortune", which featured ponies judging the girls for their mistakes.

Here's the UK comic.

==

More thoughts on the episode.

All the fan stuff is distracting from another part of the episode that I feel people are underselling: to my knowledge, this is the first story where they are simply unable to fix the problem by the end. I recall in the past that many people wanted a story like that, where sometimes you just can't convince people and you have to deal with it, particularly after season 2's "A Friend in Deed" when Cranky became friends with Pinkie. The closest we've come to this sort of lesson is season 4's "Flight to the Finish", but the problem that needed to be fixed there was always Scootaloo's mindset, not her inability to fly. I myself have advocated for this kind of story, but I admit my heart sank when the song turned out not to solve anything. It turns out seeing them fail doesn't make for a nice feeling, haha.

To my knowledge, this is also the first slice of life episode where everyone in the main cast was so negatively affected. That, I feel, is a huge part of why people are distressed about the idea that the episode is about fans. It would be one thing if the ponies were just mildly annoying the characters, but they got Fluttershy legitimately angry and formed an angry mob against Rarity.

Given that, it will be a huge shame if this really is just a one-episode thing. By all rights, this should have a major impact on their lives, and now that they've done this, there are tons of things they could do with it. Looking at upcoming episodes, the first ones that seem like they could potentially address this at length are "Daring Done" and "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You". I found the description for the latter odd when it was revealed, but in light of Rarity's business taking a big hit, it would make a lot of sense for the episode to actually be about that. Concerning the finale, the focus on books and legends in the Shadow Lock arc of the comics and Legends of Magic makes me think the Friendship Journal will play a large part.

I'll propose that the finale will end with Twilight deciding to continue writing down the lessons she and her friends learn and publishing them. Rainbow says that it's a huge pain having to write down her own lessons, and Twilight teleports in a pen and paper, saying, "I got you covered." So, things circle back around with Twilight writing down the lessons of the episode.

And other small things.

A neat detail from right before the start of the song is how Twilight appears to use the Royal Canterlot Voice for the first time ("LISTEN TO ME!"), with no magic involved.

The nature of the song is fairly uncommon in the show, as an attempt to convince a crowd about a moral. The only other one I can think of is "You Gotta Share" from season 1's "Over a Barrel". I guess "Flawless" at least didn't make things worse. Musically, the song also seems unique for the show, but I'm unable to speak to the particulars.

Honestly, the Rainbow Dash solo part is kind of bad. Why does she pause before saying "fail"?

You know, after watching this show for so long, it's pretty easy not the realize the significance of the sequence where the mob badgers Twilight and then she and her friends stand up to them, and I'm not sure the show crew realized this themselves. All of the main characters are women, dealing with people (both men and women) who either consider them perfect or terrible. They assert their rights to not fall into either category, and while it doesn't convince the crowd, they ultimately decide to persist in the face of it. This is something I'm sure someone else can speak more about, but I think it's an interesting perspective on the scene.

EDIT: I was harsh on the last few CENSORED videos, but Fame and Misfortune CENSORED is absolutely fantastic.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Oddly, it appears no Equestria Girls short aired today, but "Make Up Shake Up" is now on Hasbro's YouTube channel. I'm surprised by how many views it has already.

Pinkie Pie Says Goodnight: Sleepless

Art dump! Well, first a GIF of Sunset eating a leaf.

Fame and Misfortune
Way more art of Toola Roola and Coconut Cream than I expected.

Rainbow Dash!! by Haden-2375
Forever friends by Asika-Aida
Toola Roola and Coconut Cream by Joakaha

Our Flaws make us work by thediscorded
Nomming on a Banana Split by luminaura
FlutterDash by Atlas-66

Rarity by tyuubatu
Measuring Tape by luminaura - AKA Flutterbutt.
Toola Roola by Spirit-Dude
Toola Roola by K1emm

The hard life of popular ponies by elec-trixxx

We're A Work In Progress by WanderingPegasus
We're Not Flawless, We're A Work In Progress by RainbowDangerDashii

Psst. Toola Roola. by egophiliac - I believe this is the first episode-based art from egophiliac in a while. But I guess G4 versions of older generation ponies is her thing, after all.

Stress Sewing by lennonblack
STRESS SEWING by mlp-firefox5013
Rarity, what are you wearing? by tcn1205

The Perfect Pear
Pear Butter by ChrisFhey
4 Seasons: Autumn - Actually part of an otherwise unrelated art cycle based on the seasons.
Peary Butter by Jack-Pie

Pear Butter -Profile- by The-Butcher-X
Apple Family sitting by ponygoggles
Apple Family running by ponygoggles

A pony making a change by dstears
Buttercup by Ferasor

Pointy Ponies - The Perfect Pear

The Movie
Commander Tempest Shadow by MykeGreywolf - I held off on posting this because Myke said he was going to in the trailer thread, but it's been two months and he hasn't posted in any of these threads since, so *shrug*.
Pirates of the sky by daisymane - I doubt Applejack's jetpack will actually appear in the movie, but I still find it hilarious, so I'm happy to see it in art.

Mane 6 Seaponies Yay! by tcn1205 - Six images.

Equestria Girls
For some reason, the past week had a big burst in art based on the shorts, including ones from before last week. Maybe fan artists hadn't woken up again until new episodes aired in the US again.

Is it weekend yet by Katakiuchi4U
Ray is Sunset's dragon companion by adgrelli
Sunset and Ray by jumblehorse

The Cat by gabbslines
Fluttershy's outfit in that one Summertime Short by stevetwisp
Monday Blues by ta-na

New pet by hikariviny
Fluttershy pet outfit by applec1234
Pinkie Pie bird outfit by camo-pony

Monday Blues by rvceric
Monday Blues by VanillaGhosties
New Pet by... ShinySylveon?! - Shiny, anything you want to say? >_>

Shimglim by yuckthehuman
Breaking Character by VanillaGhosties

Other
A Royal Problem - Why Can't We All Just Get Along by MykeGreywolf

Discordant Harmony - Discordant Fluttercord by lettelauren
Honest Apple - I may not like apples... but by Chub-Wub - Text doesn't really add much.

Pointy Ponies - Discordant Harmony

Comics
A Royal Problem - I Went With My Gut! - Starlight speaks her mind perhaps a bit too much.
Mirror Magic - NICKNAME - Twilight worrying about Shimglim.
EQG Summertime Shorts - Splattack

Remixes
We're Not Flawless (UndreamedPanic Remix) - Sound effects are a bit distracting, and not a huge fan of the beginning, but I like it when it gets to the actual song.
We're Not Flawless (Enermatrix Remix) - I like the piano added to Twilight's first verse, and it's otherwise alright.
We Are Not Flawless (Metal Cover) - Starts kind of weird, but it works better after Twilight's first verse. Like a lot of "metal covers", it's hardly metal. Warning, Rarity at the end.

Daniel Ingram feat. Felicia Day - You're In My Head Like a Catchy Song (Jyc Row orchestral remix) - Kind of a weird "epic" remix, but it's alright.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Today's episode is

15. Triple Threat
Spike accidentally invites Ember and Thorax to Ponyville on the same day. He's sure the two new leaders are not going to get along so he does all he can to keep them apart and cover the fact that the other is there.

Spike had a pretty good run in season 6, so will this continue that, or will this be "Princess Spike 2"?

There's also the question of whether the episode will in any way acknowledge the events of "Fame and Misfortune". Maybe Spike is handling their visits because Twilight doesn't want to go out. I'm hoping at least for a part where the dragons and changelings are handed Friendship Journals like tourist brochures. By the way, I've decided that if Twilight is still upset about how her publishing the Friendship Journal messed with her friends' lives, I'm counting that as "Conflict between Mane 6 that lasts multiple episodes" for my bingo card.

 

[UberTag]

I don't know what it is about Josh Hamilton's episodes but they inevitably have me smiling throughout at all of the situational comedy he unleashes. He's now 2 for 2.
I'm not familiar with his work on Avatar but he's got undeniable talent.

Today's episode was a trip. Especially Ember's scenes where she was eating Twilight's castle, desecrating muffins in front of Derpy or triggering Twilight and Starlight by getting them confused and her social commentary about pony names. This continued the string of solid Spike episodes... although this one was a treat moreso due to everything else than due to Spike himself (who more or less spent the episode running away from the situation). It struck me how much his behavior reminded me of early-FiM Twilight. Very unsure of himself, riddled with self-doubt, hyperventilating and victimized by an overreactive imagination that he somehow would screw everything up. Of course, we saw this same tendency from Starlight with Celestia and Luna earlier this season, so these three are either all very similar or Twilight's social neuroses are contagious.

 

[DrForester]

So, when non-Mane 6 are called by the map they don't solve anything, they screw everything up and the targets have to clean up their mess.

OK episode. I like competent Spike more than what we got here though.

 

[DemWalls]

So, when non-Mane 6 are called by the map they don't solve anything, they screw everything up and the targets have to clean up their mess.

Well, that's a method good as any to have the "targets" overcome their conflict.


This episode proves that Hamilton isn't a one hit wonder, although I didn't find it as good as Parental Glideance. Still, he's no Fox - luckily.

 

[ShinySylvee]

This is the second Josh Hamilton episode that took a usually really crappy and overdone episode concept and managed to make something great out of it. However this team it definitely feels like it was in spite of it. Spike (and as an extension Twilight and Starlight since they never actually stepped in and helped defuse the situation) basically just constantly keeps making the wrong decision so the plot can move forward and it's really frustrating to watch at times. Also he got called by the map to solve the friendship problem that he created and then the people who were having it solved it themselves? I get that its narrative purpose is to up the stakes as well as give Spike an actual reason to ignore his friends but it's just odd that they saw there was a friendship problem and not one of them thought "hey maybe this is related to what we're doing right now." Also using the map for some plot device midway through an episode only to have the problem just sort itself out doesn't really sit right with me but that's just personal stuff and I imagine most people probably wouldn't be bothered that much by it.

The episode is fantastic when it's not dealing with the borderline cringeworthy game of trying to cause conflict though. There's so many interactions that I absolutely love. It's a small one but I liked that Ember just ignores Spike and goes to the castle and Starlight's response is "I like her." Starlight has always had a bit of a rebellious streak to her so it's a nice touch seeing her appreciate others disobeying orders. The characterizations in general are REALLY strong in the episode when the characters aren't forced to act like idiots to cause conflict. (And even then you could kinda argue that they're still in-character) Ember being shown as this sort of a stereotype of toxic masculinity (With her expressing herself through physical dominance and always trying to prove that she's right while not expressing her emotions) makes a lot of sense and it was hilarious when she called Spike over to help prove she was right. Also a lot of people have taken issue with the new changeling designs but I've always thought they looked alright and one thing I will say is that Thorax's visuals actually fit his character well now. Thorax has always been kind of a pansy so him actually looking the part reinforces that fairly well. I've never been too much of a fan of Thorax but I thought he was adorable at parts in the episode.

Overall I liked the interactions and hated the overall plot aside from the scene with Thorax and Ember. It's not perfect but again Josh Hamilton shows that he knows how to make good character interactions and hopefully for the next episode he'll come up with a better episode concept because that was the main thing holding this episode back in my opinion. I'll probably do a ton of responses tonight and a more detailed post sometime tomorrow hopefully

 

[SigmasonicX]

Triple Threat
You know, I was completely fine with Thorax's new design, until I noticed those long wings that stick out of his outer wings (elytra). They really bother me, especially when he sits and the wings drag on the ground! Gah!

Anyway, other than those distracting wings, I liked the episode a lot.

I figured this would be a Spike solo episode, so Twilight's role was a pleasant surprise. I'm also surprised to see Starlight as a side character again, and I thought she was good here, particularly with her saying she and Ember would get along.

Both Thorax and Ember were presented well, and I liked seeing them interact with everyone. Ember specifically wanting to talk with Twilight was interesting, and it's a shame we didn't see more of their conversation. It's a bit odd that Ember is so interested in intimidating other dragons, claiming that's how she usually does things, given how her first episode was about how she simply couldn't do that without help, but I'm not bothered by it. It distinguishes her from the other characters, and makes her a true representative of dragons; it would have been lame if dragon culture was "ponified" so easily. I liked her eating the walls of Twilight's Castle and confusing Starlight and Twilight.

It was nice seeing Thorax be so excited to talk to Spike. He left a lower impact than Ember, though. Interesting how this is another episode foreshadowing a later episode this season.

Glad to see confirmation that Spike can be called by the map too. It was fun seeing him solve random friendship problems, including Lyra and an oddly untalkative Bon Bon.

In the end, Spike really did keep Ember and Thorax separated for no real reason, but I was happy to see a significant chunk of the ending devoted to them getting upset at him about it. It was a bit odd that Twilight and Starlight went along with it so willingly, and I would have liked a brief scene where Twilight says, "Well, you know those two better than anyone else, so I'll trust you when you say they shouldn't meet." Still, it wasn't too much of a stretch to fill that in mentally.

I liked this episode for its fun character interactions, and I'm glad Spike's streak of no terrible episodes is continuing.

EDIT: As for "Fame and Misfortune" references, we didn't get any, but I didn't think there was a real chance this episode would have any. Still, I would have liked a scene where Ember is given a Friendship Journal, then burns it with fire.
Spike: You used magic flames to send it back to your place?
Ember: Oh, uh, yeah, sure!

 

[draetenth]

Predictable episode and overdone concept. I also kind of agree that was annoying that they finally have a non-main six member get a friendship problem, but only because they were the cause in the first place and that they everyone kept making the wrong decision...

Still, I did enjoy this episode overall:

- I liked Ember mixing up Twilight and Starlight.

- I actually liked that Spike basically was Twilight in this episode (tbh, I thought it would annoy me, but that wasn't the case...).

- I actually liked everyone's interactions with each other.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Response stuff

For the song I don't think it would have been particularly hard to make the connection make more sense (just a couple lines here and there would have been adequate) but for what we actually got I don't feel like they established the groundwork for it very well. Up until that point in the episode I feel like it's extremely well established that the main issue with the townspeople is that they are ignoring the lessons of the journal and are instead arguing about stuff that is not relevant. As I had theorized before I imagine the song probably made way more sense in context of the original "script" for the episode but I'm guessing while editing they changed the themes from "not everyone is perfect so idolizing some and bashing others is bad" to "we have all these morals we are trying to teach people that are being ignored" and the song wasn't changed along with it. Sure the subtext that the song discusses is technically there if you really look for it but I feel like that's not what 90% of people that watch the episode were taking away from the episode until the song hit.

I get the impression that the fandom references were added later as well and the harshness of them was largely due to ignorance rather then an attempt to shame a massive portion of their most dedicated fans. Up until this episode their fandom references were extremely well received so I imagine that they might have gotten a bit careless and not fully understood how it could have been perceived. I never took the jokes personally anyway since I appreciate a lot of the morals that they try to convey.

Looking back I think the biggest problem with the Starlight section is that it's unnecessary and isn't really fitting of what the episode was about. It's pretty obvious that I'm very passionate about the character and spend a lot of time analyzing her but doing some super massive analysis of Starlight's character and what I think should be done with her every time she appears on screen I imagine is very tiring to a lot of people. Mentioning that I liked her appearance and saying that she needs things like this is fine but I don't think I need to dedicate THAT much time to her.

I said it before but usually when I do these posts I'm doing other things. The review I probably had 5 or 6 sessions of me sitting down to write it and I almost never usually reread through my post because by the time I finish writing it I just want to get finished with it. Next one I'll definitely try to do a second readthrough.

Today's episode was a trip. Especially Ember's scenes where she was eating Twilight's castle, desecrating muffins in front of Derpy or triggering Twilight and Starlight by getting them confused and her social commentary about pony names. This continued the string of solid Spike episodes... although this one was a treat moreso due to everything else than due to Spike himself (who more or less spent the episode running away from the situation). It struck me how much his behavior reminded me of early-FiM Twilight. Very unsure of himself, riddled with self-doubt, hyperventilating and victimized by an overreactive imagination that he somehow would screw everything up. Of course, we saw this same tendency from Starlight with Celestia and Luna earlier this season, so these three are either all very similar or Twilight's social neuroses are contagious.

To be fair Starlight was a nervous wreck before Twilight met her. Also Twilight was Celestia's student so maybe she got it from Celestia. Or perhaps it's a written rule in Equestria that all leaders have a panic attack quota they need to meet. Or Spike looks up to Twilight and gets some of his mannerisms from her. The world will never know. (It's probably the last one though)

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a good Spike episode as it's a good episode that has Spike at the lead. Spike is by far the worst character in the episode for me which is unfortunate since he's been doing so well the past couple seasons.


In other news they revealed a clip for the next episode similar to how they've been doing it. It's pretty uneventful since the thing they're showing is clearly not the main focus of the episode. However they did show some continuity in that

Spoiler

Iron Will still has his championship belt from his victory in the Fatal Four Way.

Spoiler

At any rate you can check it out here.

Lastly the movie website got updated with some fancy graphics and stuff. Nothing we don't already know but it looks decent. You can find it http://www.mylittlepony.movie/story

 

[Trigonometrize.]

Watching the episode right now, just stopping by to say Twilight moving around in her "comfy chair for fictional reads" was the cutest bestest thing ever.

Any scenes with Twilight, Starlight, and Spike in the castle has a lot of purple I just realized.

...

Oh wow, and like 5 minutes later, Ember says the same thing.

 

[UberTag]

Watching the episode right now, just stopping by to say Twilight moving around in her "comfy chair for fictional reads" was the cutest bestest thing ever.

Twilight acting like a big dork will never not be amusing.

 

[SigmasonicX]

An Equestria Girls thing is listed on Netflix, but there isn't actually anything there yet.

It's called Equestria Girls: Tales of Canterlot High, and the description is:
In an alternate universe Equestria, the ponies have become teenage girls who must learn what it means to be human while attending Canterlot High.

Maaaaybe right for one character, but it definitely gives the wrong impression. Though concisely explaining Equestria Girls at this point is pretty difficult.

Anyway, I'm guessing this is Netflix finally uploading the TV specials.

I don't know what it is about Josh Hamilton's episodes but they inevitably have me smiling throughout at all of the situational comedy he unleashes. He's now 2 for 2.
I'm not familiar with his work on Avatar but he's got undeniable talent.

Today's episode was a trip. Especially Ember's scenes where she was eating Twilight's castle, desecrating muffins in front of Derpy or triggering Twilight and Starlight by getting them confused and her social commentary about pony names. This continued the string of solid Spike episodes... although this one was a treat moreso due to everything else than due to Spike himself (who more or less spent the episode running away from the situation). It struck me how much his behavior reminded me of early-FiM Twilight. Very unsure of himself, riddled with self-doubt, hyperventilating and victimized by an overreactive imagination that he somehow would screw everything up. Of course, we saw this same tendency from Starlight with Celestia and Luna earlier this season, so these three are either all very similar or Twilight's social neuroses are contagious.

Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about Spike becoming more like Twilight. This isn't too unusual for him, as we've seen him panic in a book horsey way, like in "Equestria Games". Though he's criticized Twilight for her lists, it makes sense that he'd fall back on that when he had to plan something out, and was at risk of starting an international incident. Now that I think about it, his leap of imagination is a lot like Twilight's in "A Bird in the Hoof", with her fearing what Celestia would do to Fluttershy, and of course "Lesson Zero".

About Ember not being able to tell the difference between Starlight and Twilight, I've read a theory that Ember and the other dragons simply aren't able to differentiate their shades of purple. With humans, many cultures aren't able to differentiate blue and green, because it just doesn't come up in nature. Almost every situation where you'd need to tell the difference is man-made. With dragons, the body shapes are so different that you wouldn't need to pay so much attention to colors, and their surroundings are all brown and gray. If this is what they had in mind, that would be really neat. Given that Hamilton worked on Avatar, it's possible this came up in his research for that show.

So, when non-Mane 6 are called by the map they don't solve anything, they screw everything up and the targets have to clean up their mess.

OK episode. I like competent Spike more than what we got here though.

Hmm, yeah, I guess that is what happened with both Starlight and Spike. Though I think they just wanted to break from the map episode formula a bit, not that this is intentional. As for Spike's competence, I wasn't too bothered by it, but I completely understand others having an issue.

Well, that's a method good as any to have the "targets" overcome their conflict.


This episode proves that Hamilton isn't a one hit wonder, although I didn't find it as good as Parental Glideance. Still, he's no Fox - luckily.

Oh, I hadn't realized he wrote that episode too. If we're comparing writers, then it's no contest, Hamilton is better than the Fox Brothers.

It's weird to think he had to write for Ember and Thorax when this episode was in production likely before their introduction episodes were even completed, yet was able to present them so well. But that's show writing for you.

This is the second Josh Hamilton episode that took a usually really crappy and overdone episode concept and managed to make something great out of it. However this team it definitely feels like it was in spite of it. Spike (and as an extension Twilight and Starlight since they never actually stepped in and helped defuse the situation) basically just constantly keeps making the wrong decision so the plot can move forward and it's really frustrating to watch at times. Also he got called by the map to solve the friendship problem that he created and then the people who were having it solved it themselves? I get that its narrative purpose is to up the stakes as well as give Spike an actual reason to ignore his friends but it's just odd that they saw there was a friendship problem and not one of them thought "hey maybe this is related to what we're doing right now." Also using the map for some plot device midway through an episode only to have the problem just sort itself out doesn't really sit right with me but that's just personal stuff and I imagine most people probably wouldn't be bothered that much by it.

The map definitely just got involved to raise the stakes and make the title relevant. But I suppose it did force Spike to go out and look for a problem, as opposed to just sticking with Thorax in the castle while Twilight led Ember around. I did find it odd how no one thought the problem was with Ember and Thorax, but this is the first time the map summoned them for a problem they already knew about.

Speaking of which, at first, I thought Spike glowing was actually Ember calling Spike, like he was summoned in "Gauntlet of Fire".

The episode is fantastic when it's not dealing with the borderline cringeworthy game of trying to cause conflict though. There's so many interactions that I absolutely love. It's a small one but I liked that Ember just ignores Spike and goes to the castle and Starlight's response is "I like her." Starlight has always had a bit of a rebellious streak to her so it's a nice touch seeing her appreciate others disobeying orders. The characterizations in general are REALLY strong in the episode when the characters aren't forced to act like idiots to cause conflict. (And even then you could kinda argue that they're still in-character) Ember being shown as this sort of a stereotype of toxic masculinity (With her expressing herself through physical dominance and always trying to prove that she's right while not expressing her emotions) makes a lot of sense and it was hilarious when she called Spike over to help prove she was right. Also a lot of people have taken issue with the new changeling designs but I've always thought they looked alright and one thing I will say is that Thorax's visuals actually fit his character well now. Thorax has always been kind of a pansy so him actually looking the part reinforces that fairly well. I've never been too much of a fan of Thorax but I thought he was adorable at parts in the episode.

I agree that the "multiple dates" parts weren't that interesting. When Thorax was talking to Spike about the problems with his hive, it would have been better if Spike did seriously listen to him, but at least we're getting an entire episode about that later. Plus, like I mentioned, I would have liked to have seen more of Twilight and Ember interacting.

I'm reminded a bit of how "Honest Apple" felt like it was forcing itself to stay on track with the "Applejack is judging fashion" story when it clearly didn't want to, but it's definitely handled much better here.

I forgot about Ember calling over Spike to prove that Twilight and Starlight look alike. That part was great. I didn't so much get the impression that Ember represented masculinity, but rather Klingon style societies, but their portrayal is probably based on hypermasculinity in the first place.

I enjoyed how Thorax was presented here too, though his inner wings still bother me a lot.

For the song I don't think it would have been particularly hard to make the connection make more sense (just a couple lines here and there would have been adequate) but for what we actually got I don't feel like they established the groundwork for it very well. [...] Sure the subtext that the song discusses is technically there if you really look for it but I feel like that's not what 90% of people that watch the episode were taking away from the episode until the song hit.

I agree that the song doesn't match what most viewers actually perceived as what the episode was going for, but I suppose it will take a rewatch for me to see if the groundwork really is buried that deep.

I get the impression that the fandom references were added later as well and the harshness of them was largely due to ignorance rather then an attempt to shame a massive portion of their most dedicated fans. Up until this episode their fandom references were extremely well received so I imagine that they might have gotten a bit careless and not fully understood how it could have been perceived. I never took the jokes personally anyway since I appreciate a lot of the morals that they try to convey.

Yeah, the biggest argument against them really meaning anything with the fandom references is, well, why now after so many other meta stories that didn't do this? And as far as I can tell, nothing changed at all about how they interacted with fans at BronyCon.

Looking back I think the biggest problem with the Starlight section is that it's unnecessary and isn't really fitting of what the episode was about. It's pretty obvious that I'm very passionate about the character and spend a lot of time analyzing her but doing some super massive analysis of Starlight's character and what I think should be done with her every time she appears on screen I imagine is very tiring to a lot of people. Mentioning that I liked her appearance and saying that she needs things like this is fine but I don't think I need to dedicate THAT much time to her.

I said it before but usually when I do these posts I'm doing other things. The review I probably had 5 or 6 sessions of me sitting down to write it and I almost never usually reread through my post because by the time I finish writing it I just want to get finished with it. Next one I'll definitely try to do a second readthrough.

I thought looking into Starlight was completely appropriate, given that this is the first time she's played a role like this, but yeah, she probably just needs a sentence or two for this episode.

For me, even for my normal posts past a certain length, I can't help but reread them after I post them and make adjustments, which is why they often get edited without any major new additions.

[...]

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a good Spike episode as it's a good episode that has Spike at the lead. Spike is by far the worst character in the episode for me which is unfortunate since he's been doing so well the past couple seasons.

Hmm, yeah, I guess that's pretty accurate. He definitely wasn't "Spike At Your Service" bad, but he probably came off worse here than in "Princess Spike", where the problem was everything surrounding Spike rather than Spike himself.

Lastly the movie website got updated with some fancy graphics and stuff. Nothing we don't already know but it looks decent. You can find it http://www.mylittlepony.movie/story

That Indiana Jones thing with the map is pretty neat. It only goes up to meeting the seaponies, so still no more insight about what happens during that, but I liked seeing the path they take.

Watching the episode right now, just stopping by to say Twilight moving around in her "comfy chair for fictional reads" was the cutest bestest thing ever.

(source)

Book horse is truly unparalleled at cute book reading.

EDIT: Seriously guys, help me out here!

 

[draetenth]

Unless I'm mistaken, but I believe Starlight later caught Thorax trying to get comfortable in Twilight's chair which I remember being cute as well...

 

[Ogodei]

This episode was definitely an Idiot Plot but it did great character work to make up for it, especially in portraying Thorax as believably flawed (neither a hopeless incompetent nor a flawless savior of his species). More Ember was definitely fun, but it was definitely an episode that could have been resolved had somebody just dunked Spike's head in a bucket of cold water in the first scene.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

This episode was definitely an Idiot Plot but it did great character work to make up for it, especially in portraying Thorax as believably flawed (neither a hopeless incompetent nor a flawless savior of his species). More Ember was definitely fun, but it was definitely an episode that could have been resolved had somebody just dunked Spike's head in a bucket of cold water in the first scene.

I just assume The Princess of Friendship knows exactly what she's doing even if there's no evidence to support that in the episode.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Unless I'm mistaken, but I believe Starlight later caught Thorax trying to get comfortable in Twilight's chair which I remember being cute as well...

No book, so it's a pale imitation.

Also, note the cover of Twilight's book. "Casual reading". Sure.

This episode was definitely an Idiot Plot but it did great character work to make up for it, especially in portraying Thorax as believably flawed (neither a hopeless incompetent nor a flawless savior of his species). More Ember was definitely fun, but it was definitely an episode that could have been resolved had somebody just dunked Spike's head in a bucket of cold water in the first scene.

Yeah, it was nice to see that things aren't just hunky-dory with the changelings, and that Thorax didn't immediately settle into his leader role, because why would he? And at the same time, he recognizes the problems he's having, quickly follows Ember's advice, and is able to help Ember.

On another note, shouldn't have done that

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I thought the Ember rubbing the muffin into the side of the building gag was weird. Did I miss something where that was set up? Why would she have the impression that ponies do that?

 

[jayj]

I am just going to throw this out there. As a kid I grew up watching cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, so naturally I sound it interesting when I first heard about this show.

I actually got into it for the first few seasons, it was just a fun, cute cartoon IMO. Well made with good characters and messages, well at least that's how it was. I guess I stopped watching when Twilight got her wings and they had that whole real girls crossover thing, definitely not stuff that I was into.

Also, the show and it's community really became a target for hate on message forums, glad to see that has mostly gone away but I can't help to wonder if the show is still enjoyable.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I am just going to throw this out there. As a kid I grew up watching cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, so naturally I sound it interesting when I first heard about this show.

I actually got into it for the first few seasons, it was just a fun, cute cartoon IMO. Well made with good characters and messages, well at least that's how it was. I guess I stopped watching when Twilight got her wings and they had that whole real girls crossover thing, definitely not stuff that I was into.

Also, the show and it's community really became a target for hate on message forums, glad to see that has mostly gone away but I can't help to wonder if the show is still enjoyable.

The Equestria Girls spinoff has been more or less ignored by the main series. The series has gotten 3 more movies after the first (The second one is much better) and is looking to get its own full series but even still it's more or less its own thing. If you don't like EQG it is really easy to just ignore and only watch the main show's episodes.

Twilight's princesshood is still largely agreed on happening way too early and Season 4 didn't handle it very well either in my opinion. However I feel like season 5 and beyond they've scaled back her role as a princess to one that makes sense for her but also doesn't really fundamentally change her that much so she's been pretty enjoyable as of late.

The fandom as a whole has shrunk quite a bit although I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the people that joined because it was a meme or it was the next big thing to like have moved on to FNAF, Undertale, Steven Universe, and Overwatch. The people that are left are the more dedicated people and overall I find the fandom to be a lot more enjoyable now then back at its peak. Also although there's still a ton of people that irrationally hate the show the hate has moved on to other things that are more relevant.

Overall if you liked Season 1's slapstick humor and simple premises then you might not like the later seasons as much. If you thought Season 2 was a step up in quality from season 1 though I would recommend checking out the later ones if you got the time. In my opinion Seasons 1 and 3 are the two weakest seasons by a pretty large margin and Season 5 is the best one so far, although if Season 7 keeps things up it might take that title. The show has had a slight tonal shift and has become a bit more mature (no one's dying or cussing or anything just that it's tackling more serious topics from time to time) which might either be a welcome addition or turn you off. I took a break from the show from a little after the season 5 premier to around the Season 6 finale and I don't think the show's quality has dropped whatsoever. If you're curious I would say it's definitely worth checking out, and there's a theatrical movie coming out (a serious one not a limited release TV movie like EQG) coming out in October that is shaping up to be pretty good as well.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I thought the Ember rubbing the muffin into the side of the building gag was weird. Did I miss something where that was set up? Why would she have the impression that ponies do that?

When Ember was eating the walls of Twilight's dining room, she asked Starlight if all ponies put food for their friends on the walls. Starlight just gave a nervous laugh. So, when she shoved Derpy's muffin into the wall, she was being friendly.

I am just going to throw this out there. As a kid I grew up watching cartoons like Powerpuff Girls, so naturally I sound it interesting when I first heard about this show.

I actually got into it for the first few seasons, it was just a fun, cute cartoon IMO. Well made with good characters and messages, well at least that's how it was. I guess I stopped watching when Twilight got her wings and they had that whole real girls crossover thing, definitely not stuff that I was into.

Also, the show and it's community really became a target for hate on message forums, glad to see that has mostly gone away but I can't help to wonder if the show is still enjoyable.

The show has been consistently good since then, and I even consider season 5 to be the best of the entire show. Twilight's portrayal went into a lull at the start of season 4 (she became a princess end of season 3), but they've gotten way better with her since. As for Equestria Girls, while I'm still not a huge fan of it, it's definitely a lot better than you'd think, and some people even prefer it over the normal show.

Depending on how involved you were in the fanbase, you might be interested to know that Trixie has finally become a recurring character (going more the Inconvenient Trixie route than the "ultimate rival" route), and Applejack's parents appeared in a flashback episode. Check out this song from that episode. It also has William Shatner.

And of course, there's the movie. Here's a clip from it, and here's the trailer. Maybe you can use it to jump back into the show.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Triple Threat is a good Spike episode. I think it would have been better if Thorax or Ember had shown some prior animosity to the other's species, which would have justified Spike's fear more. Still, I like how both were portrayed, with Thorax droning on and on, and Ember's antics throughout Ponyville.

Also, note the cover of Twilight's book. "Casual reading". Sure.

At least she's showing some interest in romance. Haven't really had that since Season 1, unless you count Equestria Girls. Not that the Mane Six is obligated to find stallions or mares, but it would be nice to see.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

When Ember was eating the walls of Twilight's dining room, she asked Starlight if all ponies put food for their friends on the walls. Starlight just gave a nervous laugh. So, when she shoved Derpy's muffin into the wall, she was being friendly.

Got it, thanks. My Little Pony's humor too advanced for me.

 

[ShinySylvee]

I just assume The Princess of Friendship knows exactly what she's doing even if there's no evidence to support that in the episode.

She's the Princess of Friendship but that doesn't make her the absolute authority on it. Also maybe she had a good reason to trust Spike's judgement but the episode itself didn't explain why which would have helped things make sense.

Also, note the cover of Twilight's book. "Casual reading". Sure

It's probably all of her Daring Do shipping fanfiction published in book form.

At least she's showing some interest in romance. Haven't really had that since Season 1, unless you count Equestria Girls. Not that the Mane Six is obligated to find stallions or mares, but it would be nice to see.

Rarity has shown it from time to time. Most of it is just casual flirting but there was also Simple Ways which had her crushing pretty hard.


Ignoring the more substantive stuff for now since it will probably be indirectly addressed in the post I'll be doing at some point.

 

[SigmasonicX]

At least she's showing some interest in romance. Haven't really had that since Season 1, unless you count Equestria Girls. Not that the Mane Six is obligated to find stallions or mares, but it would be nice to see.

Wait, when did Twilight show interest in romance in season one? Anyway, I feel like Brad was an experiment to see how receptive people would be to romance in the show and, well, we saw how that turned out.

There's also the issue that any Main Six romance won't feel right unless it's with a character they already had "best friends" style interactions with, and with the exception of DiscoShy, that basically just leaves lesbianism *thunder*. Though that leads into the larger issue that a significant chunk of time has to be spent setting up the relationship and then actually showing them together, which could distract too much from the friendship part unless they really wanted to start giving dating advice on the show.

But yeah, it is a bit odd that no one but Rarity even acknowledges the idea that they could be in a romantic relationship. I'd at least like a scene like this (below) for the other characters, to make it clear they're deliberately not seeking romance. Or maybe Fluttershy announces she and Discord are dating, and Twilight gets an anime face as she squeaks out, "Even Fluttershy beat me?"

 

[jayj]

Oh wow thanks for the info!

I watched the show during seasons 1-3 and season 4 is when I got turned off from the show. It sounds like I might as well just skip on ahead to season 5 and see what I think of that considering the praise it gets. I just always loved the cute characters and the writing, but I do think it got better at seasons 2 and 3.

Love hearing how Trixie is more of a main character now, I always loved her character and found her to be entertaining. I remember how Rarity and Rainbow Dash were always my favorite main characters, hope they developed well. Guess I gotta check it out.

Kinda sad to see how the haters haven't gone away, I never saw how people enjoying a feminine show was a such a bad thing but then again I imagine most of those haters have some personal issues and needed someone who they could target. It just always annoyed me how people tried to make me feel bad about watching it or getting into some of the characters when I just loved it for being a cute high quality cartoon with characters I could actually get into that isn't designed all around boy stuff.

Anyways, it sounds like the community has come out ahead as there was a lot of people just into it for the memes, I mean I know that's how I initially caught attention of it back when it came out.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

I watched the show during seasons 1-3 and season 4 is when I got turned off from the show. It sounds like I might as well just skip on ahead to season 5 and see what I think of that considering the praise it gets. I just always loved the cute characters and the writing, but I do think it got better at seasons 2 and 3.

I would watch the season 4 finale before jumping into 5. The last episode is basically what the season opener should've been and segues into 5.

 

[jayj]

I would watch the season 4 finale before jumping into 5. The last episode is basically what the season opener should've been.

Good to know, thanks!

 

[SigmasonicX]

I would watch the season 4 finale before jumping into 5. The last episode is basically what the season opener should've been and segues into 5.

Oh, from season 4, I would also recommend the episodes in this guide we made, particularly "Testing Testing 1, 2, 3" if you want a good Twilight episode. And "Filli Vanilli" if you want Fluttershy at her most adorable. And "Maud Pie" so you can meet one of the most popular new-ish side characters. And "Pinkie Pride" for Weird Al.

 

[ShinySylvee]

Oh wow thanks for the info!

I watched the show during seasons 1-3 and season 4 is when I got turned off from the show. It sounds like I might as well just skip on ahead to season 5 and see what I think of that considering the praise it gets. I just always loved the cute characters and the writing, but I do think it got better at seasons 2 and 3.

Love hearing how Trixie is more of a main character now, I always loved her character and found her to be entertaining. I remember how Rarity and Rainbow Dash were always my favorite main characters, hope they developed well. Guess I gotta check it out.

Kinda sad to see how the haters haven't gone away, I never saw how people enjoying a feminine show was a such a bad thing but then again I imagine most of those haters have some personal issues and needed someone who they could target. It just always annoyed me how people tried to make me feel bad about watching it or getting into some of the characters when I just loved it for being a cute high quality cartoon with characters I could actually get into that isn't designed all around boy stuff.

Anyways, it sounds like the community has come out ahead as there was a lot of people just into it for the memes, I mean I know that's how I initially caught attention of it back when it came out.

I would recommend against skipping Season 4 because even though I didn't think Twilicorn was handled very well that season it only makes up a very small portion of the season as a whole. (It's only referenced that she's a princess a handful of times and only plays a major role in the story in both the two-parters) It's a weird season since it sets up a bunch of things that end up being completely dropped in the later seasons but overall there's a lot of fantastic episodes in it. Additionally some pretty important stuff happens in the Finale that sets up the rest of the show so it's kinda hard to skip. Also there's a really cool fight scene in it too.

There's a really good Rarity+Rainbow episode in Season 5. Rainbow's episodes have been a bit hit-or-miss but there's still some great stuff for her. Pretty much everyone universally agrees that Trixie has been way better from Season 6 forward so I think you'll be happy with what they do with her.

I worded things poorly. There aren't really any haters that go around actively antagonizing the show anymore, just that they complain if it ends up being brought up outside of the more designated pony places, and it's largely on Youtube and stuff like that. As far as Gaf goes I haven't seen anyone come into these threads to bash the show, although we occasionally get some people that show up out of curiosity and I've been in these threads for less then a year.

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Wait, when did Twilight show interest in romance in season one? Anyway, I feel like Brad was an experiment to see how receptive people would be to romance in the show and, well, we saw how that turned out.

She didn't. Rarity did. That's what I meant.

 

[SigmasonicX]

She didn't. Rarity did. That's what I meant.

Well in that case, we can't forget

(By the way, jayj, feel free to skip "Simple Ways")

EDIT: Actually, nah, go ahead and watch it. Rarity's voice acting is great in it, at least.

 

[Lightning_Roller]

So, I actually come to like king thorax, he's adorable. And so nice!!

 

[SigmasonicX]

Oh hey, new Equestria Girls Summertime Short.

The Canterlot Movie Club
I better not see Juniper Montage. Oh, that's interesting. In this universe, CMC means "Canterlot Movie Club". Is it just me, or are the CMC animated in a more rubbery way than the other characters? Still kind of sad that Gummy is just a stuffed animal in this universe. Anyway, this was alright. Thankfully, no Juniper.

NOTES
Not much to say that wasn't already covered, but this is neat.

To my knowledge, this is the first instance of male "best friends" in the show. There was already a pair like this in first Equestria Girls, which was even pointed out in the commentary, but no one cared then.

SCREENSHOTS
Comparing Spike's imagination with Twilight's
Trumpeter ponies 1 - Surprised they made these outfits just for this short scene.
Trumpeter ponies 2
Starlight meeting Ember: Expectations vs. Reality
Spike's "cutie mark"
Twilight tries to seduce Thorax
Squished Spike (embedded)
Spike creates a new background pony ship
Thorax's bear form - Actually surprised they made a whole new bear model for this. But I guess Barry just isn't threatening at this point.
Spike as Tuxedo Mask (embedded)

GIFS
World ending imagination
Thorax excited by fire
Edit - Excited bug noises
Some changelings just want to see the world burn (embedded)
Ember's superhero entrance
Ember angry at the trumpeters
Ember eating Twilight's dining room
Ember in a huff (embedded)
Twilight hugging Ember
Ember's fire greeting to the ponies
Pony jumping in a hole
Ember greeting Derpy
Edit - Ember wiggling her eyebrows zooming in
Thorax headdesk
Ember stretching
Ember holding her breath (embedded)

FAN CONTENT
Ember vs. ??? by mysticalpha - I was surprised that this of all things was the very first fan art to be uploaded for this episode, but then I learned that this was shown in the preview. At least most people interpreted that as an imagine spot.
Hiding the Secrets by Anonsbelle
Dragon's Ember Threat by AssasinMonkey

Princess Ember Tsundere by Banquo0
Leaders by JonFawkes - Embedded below is a close up version.
'friendships' by bobthedalek

Stone Cold Ember by saturdaymorningproj - References Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Best part of the episode by neuro
I-It's Not l-like I l-like or anything B- baka ! by ChrissyDrawsCZ

Quiet Time by cheezedoodle96
Pony Trumpeteer by PegasusJedi

Fame and Misfortune
Rare Flaw by AssasinMonkey
Short on Time by DocWario

I liked her before she had wings by Jowybean

Comics
Ember Suplex by klondike - Self explanatory.
Chairs by poecillia-gracilis19 - Twilight likes chairs now.

We're Not Alike by k-nattoh

Translation from Derpibooru, modified a bit.
- Ember, don't you see the differences between me and Starlight?!
- Our ages are completely different!

Too Popular by lumineko - Note that the last panel is animated.

Remix
You're in My Head Like a Catchy Song - MLP:FIM - |DUET PIANO COVER w/Lyrics| -- Synthesia HD by WeimTime

EDIT: GIFs are in.

 

[ShinySylvee]

(By the way, jayj, feel free to skip "Simple Ways")

I feel like I'm the only person that liked that episode. Sure the premise was stupid but I thought it was pretty funny.

So, I actually come to like king thorax, he's adorable. And so nice!!

I've never been a fan of Thorax (I felt like he didn't have almost any personality or agency and only really existed to serve the plot rather then be his own character) but I dug him a bit in the episode. He feels like he's actually participating in the plot now and so his previously established traits of being fairly passive and non-confrontational feel like actual quirks that he has to deal with rather then an attempt to endear him to viewers as well as a method to insure that he doesn't really have an in-character reason to have any agency in the story despite being a central character in the two previous appearances.

A lot of people hated the new changeling designs but I feel like his visuals actually match his character now so in that regard I think the design works. Also surprised no one is mentioning it but holy shit Thorax is tall now. He's almost twice the size of the ponies. I'm guessing that they were trying to make him roughly the size of Chrysalis. I know he's always been this height post-transformation but this was the first time I really noticed it.