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Trade Ya (April 19th 2014 22 minutes)

I was planning on doing the Friendship Ahoy! arc in the comics next, but I discovered something in that comic that required me to read a *different* book that I had not originally intended to do. I read the comics and MLP books through a Kindle app, and for some reason the app is crashing on that one book to such an extent that it won't even let me open the Kindle app at all anymore. So I'm going to continue on with episodes until Amazon gets back to me about what the heck is going on.

Back to Rainbow Falls. Still no real indication where this location is relative to anywhere else on the official map, other than it's pretty high up in the mountains, on a plateau. It wouldn't surprise me to find out this is supposed to be the Equestrian equivalent to Colorado Springs or some such. In which case it would be situated on the other side of the mountains from Los Pegasus, south of that river that runs from Ponyville to Los Pegasus.

Okay, so actual Princess duties here. This traders exchange is a yearly thing, and every year there has to be at least one princess presiding over it. Has Twilight not been to one of these before? Otherwise her surprise at her immediate reception is odd. If she has been to one before, and the streamers and banner for the Princess didn't appear then, then they're making an unusual amount of fuss over Twilight this year. Possibly because they are aware this was the first official Princess act she's done?

Oh lord, the wagging tail. That's way too cute.

This is the only first edition left of this specific book? Hrmmm. Probably it was very early in the series then, printed before it became popular, given that they can't be *that* old as the author is still living.

Bear call. These actually exist, which surprised me.

Orthros was a specific two-headed (and serpent-tailed) dog in Greek mythology. The brother of Cerberus and Chimera, and the father of the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion. He was killed by Hercules as a side effect of one of Hercules' labors. Like most Greek monsters, he was an individual, not a species, but whatever.

Yeah, this does feel like a flea market. A lot of junk that nobody in their right mind would want, and an environment set up to make sure nobody is in their right mind...

What a fascinating outfit the Orthros seller has. Very post-apocalyptic, in that Mad Max style. It's probably supposed to invoke a gladiator-like image.

Darn it, the antique chicken seller is imitating an old-time comedic actor's accent that I should recognize. Phil Silvers, Milton Burl? Not quite, but something from that era. This is going to bother me now.

Interesting, we're seeing Crystal ponies outside of the Crystal Empire now. That's probably about the right amount of population migration, given we don't really have a good idea of how much time has passed.

The comic book trader has a standee of some kind of flame pony using a similar body model to the princesses. Another case of me feeling I should catch that reference.

That's supposed to be a paperback? Given it's size relative to the other books, it's at least a tradeback. (A paperback in the same form-factor as a hardcover.) In which case there's a possibility it's actually better, given that tradebacks used to be primarily for preliminary print runs sent out for reviews before the actual production hardcover runs. Which means a much more limited printing run, and will likely still contain passages that will be edited in the production run.