See * for disclaimer

Three's a Crowd (January 25th 2014, 22 minutes)

Summary: Twilight tries to spend some quality time with her sister-in-law Cadence. Oh, and Discord has a minor part in this.

Twilight received several pieces of mail, most of which look like modern envelopes, including standard-looking junk mail and bills with little plastic windows and large mass-produced labels. Except for Cadence's letter which is sealed with wax. I know for a fact that real modern post will reject letters sealed with wax as it messes up their automatic sorting machines something fierce. And the letters don't get returned to you either, they just bin them on the spot.

And Cadence uses tatty-edged paper at that. Probably some kind of fashion statement.

Reference to the Breezies, a G3 creature. I'm actually a bit surprised they're starting to bring in stuff from prior generations at this late a date. Although out of the list (seaponies, flutterponies, bushwollies, and breezies), breezies are probably the easiest to deal with.

Starswirl the Bearded Travelling Museum. Cute. Travelling Exhibits have been around for a very long time, almost as long as museums themselves. And now we know what Starswirl is presented as looking like to modern ponies. White coated, and honestly a very fake looking beard as it's more like insanely long sideburns as it doesn't reach to his chin. I still hold out hope for it to be Star Swirl from G1-G3, putting on a beard to make herself more respected in the magic-user community, as being 'bearded' is a common slang in LGBT circles for using a prop (usually another person) to pretend to be a different orientation.

The Crystal Empire has considerably bigger locomotives. This looks like an exaggerated Southern Pacific 4449 engine.

Wait, that's a Crystal Pegasis! We've not seen anything other than crystals earth pony up until now. Is that an animation error? I can't find any notes from anywhere saying that it's an error. Yeah, yeah, Flash Sentry, who cares... I want to know about the crystal pegasis!

Are we sure the writers/animators aren't fans of Doctor Who? This spinning/falling mystery object is kind of a trope in Doctor Who, going back into the classic series, even.

"What?" And that, dear readers, is how you do a character reference properly.

Interesting question, where does Discord 'live' normally?

Caverns of Maretania? The only place that comes to mind that could be a pun of is Mauritania, a country in North Africa. I'm not sure *why* it would be that though.

Why would he need a candle though? Was there something preventing a light spell?

Magic Health Bubble? Interestingly specific spell, must be pretty useful.

Wow, that song. I can't keep up with all the references, but they're not really relevant as Discord, like many 'genie' characters are notorious for bringing stuff in out of context. Anything he creates/references isn't necessarily part of the setting, and while fun and amusing, have no bearing on pony culture or the setting in general. Unfortunately, because some of those references are hilarious. Harry Potter, the singing harp from Jack the Giant Killer, so on and so forth.

Cadence mentions she's out of practice flying. More like she's out of practice pulling a cart while flying, to be honest.

This looks like the badlands at the southern edge of the official map of Equestria.

Tatzlewurm is what the writers called this. The mythological tatzelwurm is from the Alpine regions of Europe, and is basically a small lizard with no hind legs. Similar to the much larger Lindworm (or linnorm), which is a Nordic dragon with no wings or hind legs. This, however, is drawn to resemble something between the Dune sandworm and the Bettlejuice ghost worm. Sorry, there's a good chunk of the Tremors graboid (or olgoi-khorkhoi, mongolian death-worm) in there.

I feel sorry for Shining Armor. As a former captain of the guard, he's probably putting all his energy into *making* the Crystal Empire safe and predictable. He probably has no idea Cadence is bored.

Wait, Discord has no idea what the Tatzlewurm is? That's an interesting gap in his knowledge.

And Discord can actually get sick.