While the view count for these episode watching thingies is relatively low, I'm seeing some regular names show up in the viewing box. I honestly don't know why you guys keep coming back. This stuff is interesting to me, and I'm using this for my own purposes, but I'm puzzled as to why some of you are reading these so regularly when I'm not putting any effort into making them entertaining or anything. I'm not even grammar checking them, it's just stream of consciousness stuff.

I've also noticed my entries for these episodes have gotten longer recently. There seems to be more stuff that I'm seeing in them.

See * for disclaimer

Read It and Weep (February 4th 2012, 22 minutes)

Summary: Read, or the owl will eat you! (Don't ask, it's not worth it.)

So close, and yet so far.

The machine that goes beep!

For all that the inside of this hospital gives the impression of the generic modern hospital (albeit a 1950's country hospital with wood furniture and the like), the décor is fascinating. Even here, the ponies could not resist putting effort into swirling paint schemes and fluted columns.

Wait, where did that fluted column go? It's not in the master shot of the room. Huh.

Cute. The things you do to stave off boredom.

definitely electrical bedside light, and a tissue box. Boxes of tissues like that were first introduced in the 20's for makeup removal. As I understand it, it was one of those cases where the manufacturer was completely blindsided by how the customers actually used their product. They hadn't thought of using these tissues as disposable handkerchiefs.

I want to know about the other pony there, what's his story?

Here we go with another problem episode. What we are about to see is fictional within this setting, and it is being presented as a complete fiction; the mental movie that Rainbow Dash is building around what she is reading. So all we'll be able to pull out of this for worldbuilding is based on the things RD thinks she knows and what the author thinks is entertaining. Except for the Season 4 episode Daring Don't that challenges that assumption, and all of this goes sideways. Let's do the best we can, and simply say this section requires a lot more grains of salt than the rest of the series does.

Tiger and a black jaguar (also known as a black panther). Tigers are Asian, while jaguars are South American. Black panthers are not a specific breed of jaguar, but a odd genetic glitch that shows up quite often called melanism, causing an otherwise normal jaguar to be black. Jaguars are normally a third of the size of tigers, but here they're being shown as being much the same size. Melanistic leopards from Africa and the Middle East are also called black panthers, but they're much smaller than jaguars so I'm giving this one to the jaguars.

That's a lynx, and with the limited spotting looks like a Eurasian lynx rather than a Canadian lynx or a bobcat (which is a subtype of lynx). Lynx are usually about a fifth the size of a jaguar.

Cheetah, which covers much the same region as leopards is normally slightly smaller than a jaguar.

So this shows that these animals are not quite the same as their real-life counterparts. The relative sizes have been jiggered around, but that might be due to interpretation of various levels.

Housecat. Which isn't as out-of-place as you might first think. Funny, yes, but the domestic cat has more in common with the cheetah and the lynx than it does with the tiger or the jaguar (or leopard for that matter).

This temple has a Mixtec feel to it, with the anthropomorphic brazier holders. Central and South American cultures tend to get all mixed up into big 'blocks' like Olmec, Mayan, Aztec, Inca, etc.. but there was a lot more variation going on than most people realize. What people normally call 'Aztec' includes the real Aztecs plus Mixtec, Totanacs, K'iche', Kaqchikel, etc. They were all distinct cultures, but reductionism has turned their history into mush for the most part.

Battle axes only had that general shape during the bronze age in the Cretian area of Greece. However, very old bronze that has not been cleaned for a very long time has that kind of gunmetal color, so it's possible that these are *not* as out-of-place as they first appear.

Standard Indiana Jones traps. Actually, there were a bunch of traps the Egyptians put into their tombs to deter graverobbers, but no where near the number that people thought there were. A lot of what they took as deliberate traps were just accidents due to decaying structures. These however, are very deliberate traps.

Conjoined twin Jackal statue. Hrmmm. Lot of symbolic possibilities there. Pity this is the equivalent of a dream sequence.

Pegasi version of the Battleship game (also owned by Hasbro). I wonder if anyone there even considered putting that out there for real. I'm not sure anyone would buy them, but it would be amusing.

Heh.

Ahuizotl. Crazy looking thingy isn't he? That's an actual mythological creature from South America, although the mythological version's fur is all clumped into spikes, and is about the size of an otter, while at the same time being strong enough to drown a person with the hand on it's tail. It also tends to eat eyes, teeth, and fingernails. Ick.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of that accent. It seems to slide around from Bordeaux France to St. Petersburg Russia by the way of Budapest Hungary without stopping at any particular place long enough to settle down.

That's the definition of overkill, right there.

Okay, they have electricity, but use fireflies in their camping lanterns. So no naphtha, kerosene, or propane. Makes me wonder what's driving the train engines? Do they use coal or petroleum at all, or do they have substitutes for all of that?

And that was my experience when I had my knee rebuilt. Went in, had surgery, suddenly I was outside in a wheelchair wondering what just happened?

Get the book, and get out, you silly filly!

The heck? Those are very stubborn nurses to chase beyond the hospital grounds.

And the hospital has a psychiatric department, apparently. Screwloose is best bloodhound.

Bit of a Blofled moment there. Or is that Blueblood in this universe? I'm assuming that's been made into a fanfic somewhere, I can't have been the first to think of that one.