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Feeling Pinkie Keen (February 11th 2011, 22 minutes)

Summary: Twilight tries to understand Pinkie. Oh lord.

Why does Spike's concentration have any effect on Twilight's magic? Is Twilight actually drawing power from, or channeling power through, Spike? Is that why Twilight has more ability than normal, because she's using Spike as some form of battery?

Here we are with another air-chariot being pulled by a pegasis. However, this time Fluttershy is hovering with it. I was willing to let is slide when they were in motion, but hovering is a different matter. Unless she's freakishly strong, there's no way she's holding that weight up that far away from her on a lever-arm like that. The torque on the harness is going to be astonishing. There has to be some kind of innate pegasis magic in operation here, or the chariots are enchanted.

I still say Gummy's not an alligator. The head shape is definitely crocodile. Alligators have relatively short, blunt noses. Crocodiles have narrower noses with more pronounced nostrils. Gharials are even more extreme with their narrow noses, for reference. The other defining difference between an alligator and a crocodile depends on the fourth tooth being inside or outside the lip. Given that Gummy doesn't *have* teeth, that doesn't work for us. Anyway, Gummy looks like a very young dwarf crocodile. Oh wait, I lie. I had forgotten about the dwarf caiman. Caimans are a special subfamily of small crocodilians that sits right next to the alligator family instead of the crocodile family. This would satisfy Pinkie calling Gummy an alligator. Crocodilia, the order that includes alligators, crocodiles, caimans, and gharials, all loose and regrow teeth constantly. It's one of the defining characteristics. So it's technically possible that Gummy just accidentally has lost all his teeth at the moment, and that they will regrow on their own. More likely he has a condition that prevents teeth from rooting properly.

So putting Twilight and Pinkie in 3rd edition D&D terms, Wizard vs. Sorcerer then.

Okay, normally all that tech in Twilight's basement would fall under 1950-60's atomic-era styling. Except for the steam whistle. Though to be honest, there was so much steam venting in the classic Star Trek series (also 1960's styling) that I'm surprised someone didn't stick a steam whistle on it.

"Pinkie, have you seen Twilight?" "Ah-huh!" Well done.

Pith helmet, so-called because they were originally made of pith, the spongy stuff in the center of tree branches. Eventually transitioned to cork to be more durable. Although originally military, and have some resemblance to combat headgear, they were never meant to protect against anything other than the sun. The traditional British police 'Bobby' helmet is also a pith helmet, brought back from British tropical colonies as part of the military uniform.

And Twilight is in fact following typical, but not correct, scientific process. Deciding what the answer is and looking for supporting evidence. Which tends to transform science into their equivalent of fanfiction. Much like what I'm doing here.

Location known a Froggy Bottom Bog. This is a somewhat complex pun because it's pun built on top of pun. Soggy Bottom Boys, the music group from 'O Brother Where Art Thou' is a homage to the Foggy Mountain Boys (a real bluegrass band from 1948, considered to be the archetypical bluegrass band), and Foggy Bottom, a former slum district of Washington DC with a mix of black, Irish, and German immigrants, from which came a wide variety of blues, bluegrass, and jazz musicians.

Hydra, again the D&D version from old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, rather than the mythological version. I get the impression that some of the animators are old-time pencil-and-paper gamers. Actually, I'd be curious to see if any of the staff worked on the old D&D cartoon that was ran a year or two before the original My Little Pony animated series. Probably not, but it would be funny if that was true.

Pony emotional states cause actual physical changes. This will be reinforced later, but first really shows up here with flaming Twilight. Yes, it's cartoony, but if we take the reactions of the other three present and how the flames reflect on their faces, then for them, then something visible occurred here.

And suddenly Celestia again. She seems to make a habit of appearing out of nowhere. I can see that being a valuable skill for a ruler.