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Fhaolan

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  1. Fhaolan

    Applejack Eternal

    By Fhaolan,

    Okay, before I get into the actual topic, I feel the need to address something:
    Cider and Alcohol
    Applejack in and of itself is an alcoholic drink. It’s made by taking already alcoholic cider and ‘freeze distilling’ it. Barely freezing it and fishing out the ice. Since alcohol freezes at a much lower temperature than water, you’re effectively pulling the water out of the cider, and leaving the alcohol behind. This is called ‘jacking’ and takes a lot less effort than normal boiling distillation. This was very common up to the 18th century or so and is still done today though it is less common. 
    Calling non-alcoholic apple juice ‘cider’ is a very modern thing and is generally limited to the United States. Everywhere else cider is alcoholic. It isn’t necessarily very strong alcohol, mind you. Root beer and ginger ale were originally alcoholic as well, just very lightly alcoholic. You see, back in olden times drinking water wasn’t very common as you could get really sick from it. Most water sources had animals (and in some cases people), living in them, and if you drank that water, you’re also drinking their feces and whatnot. But alcohol kills the bad bacteria, so people got into the habit of creating lightly alcoholic beverages to drink. Small beer, watered wine, and the like. And everyone drank them, children included. It was only later (19th century onward) when the temperance movement kicked in that ‘soft’ non-alcoholic versions of drinks were marketed against the ‘hard’ alcoholic ones.
    Cider is usually made from very specific cider apples, as general eating and baking apples have a different sugar profile. And due to the high sugar content, it’s easy and quick to ferment cider. You can create cider from normal apple juice in a couple of days. Just leave a jug of apple juice out in the sun in the summer for two days, and you’ll have hard cider. I did this by accident once. I went camping, and accidentally left a 2-liter bottle of apple juice in the bed of the truck over the weekend. You could’ve driven nails with the stuff, it was so hard. 
    And finally, apple juice doesn’t hold a head of foam. Cider, on the other hand, does. So, what the Apple family was serving to all those people? Alcohol. Probably not very strong alcohol (0.5-1.5% or so), but still. The time frame they were putting on creating cider from apples in the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 episode was a bit compressed, but not really by that much and Pony magic might have made up the difference there.
    Oh, and here’s something interesting: If pony digestion is anything like real-life equine digestion, it wouldn’t matter if it was alcoholic or not before they drank it. It was alcoholic when it hit their system. In order to pull nutrients out of grass and other stuff that humans can’t digest, equines have a fermentation-based digestion system. That’s why they go crazy over sugar-cubes and the like. Sugar gets almost instantaneously turned into alcohol in their system, and fruit is *full* of sugar. So if the ponies eat apples as a primary food source, they’ve probably slightly drunk all the time. 

    Okay, on the real reason I wanted to write up this essay. This is something I originally meant to work into a fanfiction (Doctor Whooves and the Spaniel Mane), but I got stuck in the plot itself and never finished it. I’m tired of looking at it, so I’m putting it here instead.
    There is always an Applejack in MLP. Due to the way Hasbro kept track of its trademark toy names, when FiM premiered, most of the pony names were pulled from G3 instead of G1. Lauren Faust had wanted G1 names and appearances, but Hasbro had temporarily lost most of those trademarks (it has since reclaimed a lot of them). There were only two that they hadn’t lost: Spike, and Applejack. Mainly because they had also used them in G3 and had gone through the effort to maintain the trademarks on them.
    Unlike the rest of the Mane 6, G4 Applejack’s color palette doesn’t match the G3 incarnation. Instead she has mostly G1’s colors. Big Mac actually looks more like G3 Applejack, coloration-wise. G1.5 is my own classification for the ‘My Little Pony Tales’ cartoon, so it doesn’t count as officially that was still G1. G3.5 was just G3 with a different art-style and a much, much smaller cast of characters, so it would be easy enough to just update the artstyle on the G3 Applejack and call it good. G2 is the hardest. There was a G2 pony that resembles Applejack in coloration, Bright Bramley (Bramley is an English cooking apple), but she is technically a different character. G2 was odd as I don’t think it had any characters in common with the other generations, but I might be mistaken. In which case, Bright Bramley might very well be G2’s Applejack, just under a different name.
    With the ‘leaked’ G5 material, it seems like Applejack will be in that generation as well. So, with some stretch, it’s possible to say there is always an Applejack in My Little Pony. The various Applejacks are wildly different in characterization, but there they are.
    So from a worldbuilding perspective, why? Why Applejack, of all ponies? It’s somewhat of an unusual name for a pony in children’s media (see the first half of the essay as to what Applejack means), so she stands out, even when she’s just in the background. Something wants there to be an Applejack.
    Which, in my fanfiction story, was the premise. The Doctor traveled back a century or two, and found himself on the deck of Captain Applejack, fierce pirate queen of the Spaniel Mane. Who was being investigated by Jack Russell, a diamond dog time agent from the far future (yes, Captain Jack Harkness as a dog, sue me. I’m nothing if not derivative. That plus the joke 'Jack Russell, Terrier of the Seven Seas' just had to get into it somewhere. ), masquerading as her second mate. And the two must join forces to find out why Applejack is a fixed point across all time, and why this incarnation of Applejack may break that chain and endanger time itself.
    Which is were I got stuck, of course, because none of the ideas I had as to *why* there was always an Applejack were very compelling for a narrative. There was something that each Applejack had to do in their own time-zones, that they had to independently arrive at, that lined up across time (sorta a morally good version of the City of Death serial from the 1979 run of Doctor Who). At precisely the same ‘time’ in each generation, every Applejack would do this thing, and time itself would be kept stable. But that could be anything, really. There was no narrative push for any one action that I could figure out, and even then, it wouldn’t make sense without seeing all the *other* Applejacks in their own timelines doing the same thing. And the story just bogged down into minutiae.
    The real answer was the people in Hasbro responsible for tracking toy names just like the name ‘Applejack’ and likely has no idea what the word really means, the same way that Kellogg’s renamed ‘Apple O’s’ to ‘Apple Jacks’ in 1971. It has no relevance to anything, they just wanted a name that had something to do with apples, and probably thought it was connected with the old knucklebones game that is often called jacks in North America. 
  2. Fhaolan
    Most of my worldbuilding blogs revolve around me filling in details, pointing out things I find interesting, and so forth. This one's a bit different as I don't have an answer for it. It's a question that I would be curious to see the writers answer, but I doubt they'll address it (accidentally or otherwise).
    We'll start off with what we know:
    Pegasi can walk on clouds, and manipulate them like they are solid objects. Other pony tribes cannot, and it has been demonstrated that non-pegasi ponies just fall through clouds except in extreme cases when the cloud is 'compressed' deliberately (Rainbow Dash doing a special maneuver to save the rest of the Mane 6 when they fall during one of the Wonderbolt Cadet episodes, etc.), or the pony (and dragon which will become important later) are enchanted by a special spell by Twilight (or any other accomplished magic-user with a similar spell, I assume.) It is implied that this is part of the pegasi 'magic' that also allows them to fly despite their wings not actually being big enough to support themselves in flight. This is the magic that Tirek drained from them during that particular episode, rendering pegasi grounded.
    Scootaloo, despite being a pegasus who cannot fly *is* able to cloudwalk. She has difficulty reaching Cloudsdale, but once there has no issues walking around. So however this magic is expressed, it's not fully linked with the ability to fly. A bit of a contradiction of the previous implication, but okay, it was just an implication after all, not a stated fact.
    Luna showed that alicorns, being creatures that have the potential abilities of Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies, also have the ability to cloudwalk as she laid upon a stormcloud and startled Rainbow Dash with it at one point as a prank.
    Gryphons can also do this, as demonstrated by Gilda in her first episode lounging around on a cloud while interacting with Rainbow Dash. This is where things start to go off the rails a bit. It makes sense for her to be able to do so for plot reasons, as it allows her and RD to go somewhere and 'chillaxe' that takes considerable effort for Pinkie Pie to deal with. However, for worldbuilding purposes, it throws a wrench into things. This is now not an ability unique to pegasi, but other winged creatures seem to have this ability as well. It's not tied to pony-kind's innate magic. Just as a side-note, Gryphon wings are also drawn considerably bigger in ratio to their bodies than pegasi wings, so likely they don't need as much magic to bypass the laws for aerodynamics.
    But, okay, Pegasi and Gryphons can cloud walk. Fine, no problem.
    Here's where it breaks down for me: Spike can't cloudwalk. He falls through clouds, just like any non-pegasi/gryphon. At least, that's what happened before he got wings...
    So these are the questions that bother me: Can winged dragons manipulate clouds the same way pegasi and gryphons can? Is this ability connected to the physical presence of wings, but not necessarily functional ones? When Tirek drained the pegasi ability to fly, did they also lose the ability to cloudwalk? Could Tirek have drained this ability from gryphons? The wings on Spike (and other teenage-type dragons) are even smaller in ratio to their bodies than pegasi, so their flight ability is definitely magical. Would that have been drainable as well?
    My opinion, with no basis in any evidence whatsoever, is that Spike should have had the ability to cloudwalk from the beginning. It should have been a very brief moment of confusion when he did it for the first time, with a comment of 'How does that work?' followed by 'It must be a dragon thing. We'll get back to it, we've got bigger things to deal with right now.' and then just leave it at that, open ended. However, this is all in retrospect, and there's no way the writers at the time were even vaguely concerned with this kind of worldbuilding.
    That's what we're here for, afterall.
    As another side-note: It would have amused me to see the Cutie-Mark Crusaders walking through deep-ish snow drifts at some point, with Applebloom breaking trail for Sweetie Bell, while Scootaloo simply walks on top of the drifts. Just to point out some differences in how the different pony tribes deal with things naturally, and as a toss-away reference to a specific scene in the Lord of the Rings novels where the humans break trail for the hobbits, and Legolas just walks on top of the snow.
  3. Fhaolan

    Goodbye Snowdancer

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: How're you doing?
    A: Rough day yesterday. Our elderly horse Snowdancer (who my wife had named with her normal screenname way back when, so there's a thing), passed away. My wife says she was 28, but I swear she's being saying that for five years. In any case, for a Belgian draft horse that's pretty old.
    Snowdancer had originally been a logging horse. Basically the intent was that she would be brought to areas where they were harvesting trees that the terrain was too rough for heavy machinery, in order to pull the logs down to where the tractors and the like could reach. I'm not sure it actually happened, as tech was catching up and the logging company got a hold of small portable engines that could be anchored to other trees or boulders to do the same thing without risk to an animal. But she had been trained to do that.
    Then she was bought by a lady who basically put her out to pasture. She was small for a Belgian, more European blood than the normal American blood lines, so she didn't fit with any of the draft teams that exist in this area. In any case, that lady reached a point that she couldn't take care of her anymore, and Snowdancer (who was named 'Lilly' at this point) went up for auction. I think she was about 7 at this point.
    Enter my wife, before she became my wife. In fact at this point I had just asked her out on a date for the first time. In any case, when a horse goes up for auction there are two things that could happen: If they are a former racing horse or police horse they go for high prices to people who want to 'rescue' them. Otherwise, you're going to be bidding against a dog food company. Literally. $700 later, my future wife has a horse.
    My wife's a big lady, and she (and I) were part of an acting troupe called 'The Seattle Knights'. It still exists, but we've retired from it now though we're still good friends with many of the members. My wife wanted a horse capable of carrying her while jousting. Yes, running at another horseman covered in armour, with a lance. People do still do that. So, a long training period started. Several years, in fact.

    Turns out Snowdancer wasn't really suitable for jousting. She didn't like running directly at another horse, which isn't unusual. In fact, most jousters have to go through training several horses in order to find one that doesn't mind doing that. Oh well. She was still great for riding and eventing. Her long stride meant she could cover more ground in a few steps so for really short sprints she outpaced a lot of Thoroughbreds at western games. And despite her size, she was very agile, and could turn *very* fast, regularly making 90 degree turns in a single stride. That threw several people who tried to ride her. Again, literally. She had no patience for people who pretended they knew how to ride, and those pretenders would find themselves sailing along without a horse under them as they signaled a turn, and she'd just... turn out from under them. We were offered $50,000 for her from a Western eventer. Not a stupid amount of money relative to what horses *could* go for, but considerably more than the $700 that my wife had paid for her.
    She really liked children, interestingly enough. She'd let kids climb all over her, and had infinite patience with them, moving under them so they wouldn't fall. So, she became an award-winning Vaulting horse. With kids doing gymnastics on her back as she kept a steady pace in a circle around my wife. Many kids grew up while Snowdancer helped them through competitions and the like.

    Eventually, though, she started to develop arthritis. There were drugs that could be used to keep her 'in service', but we didn't think that was fair to her. We did help her with painkillers and joint supplements, but we didn't put her through heavy effort anymore. She was retired. This was some eight-nine years ago.
    Yesterday she laid down in her stall, and didn't quite have enough strength to stand back up again. She was struggling, and in serious distress. We tried to get her up, to see if it was just a passing thing, but it wasn't. The vet recommended, and we made the decision.
    Goodbye Snowdancer. You were the best big girl.

  4. Fhaolan
    I was asked about how BABSCon went by a couple of people, so I’m going to do a full review from my point of view here. It seems to be a valid place. It's going to include more than just the Con itself, because in my opinion the Con was one part of a bigger picture.
     
    I’m an experienced con-goer. I’ve been doing it for decades all over this continent. But I had burned out on cons many years ago. They seemed to have the same vendors, the same panels, the same events over and over and over again. Especially when I moved to the Pacific Northwest and joined the Seattle Knights stage combat acting troupe, where I had to go to a *lot* of cons, renfaires, and the like as a performer, instructor, and vendor. Even now I still go as a vendor as my wife spins wool and stuff to make handcrafts to sell at them, but I rarely join into any of the panels/ events/ whatevers for them anymore as I had gotten tired of all of it. On the rare occasions I do, it’s as a costumer. I’m technically a Journeyman Costumer according to the national costuming association because of the various competitions I’ve placed in. Me, I just like making things.
     
    However, the staff here at Poniverse had been talking to me about going to an actual ponycon at some point, a lot of them were going to BABSCon. And BABSCon had changed its dates this year so it wasn’t happening at the same time as one of the big events my wife likes to sell at, and the con wasn’t *that* far away with an hour or a bit on a plane… so what the heck.
     
    == The Prep ==
     
    Just for the heck of it, I put together a cosplay before leaving. It took longer than I had planned because I kept changing my mind on how I was going to do it. In the middle of the build we got a working embroidery machine, which made some stuff faster to do, but meant I needed to put more effort into figuring out how to retrofit the embroidery onto pieces I had already assembled. I decided to do a collar using a bead loom rather than use fabric, just for the sparkle. And I accidentally found a scrap of hemlock wood in my leftover pile that I could turn into a long but light horn to attach to a hat. My wife thought it was hilarious, as I’m already 6’2”, and the Starswirl hat I had built was ridiculous, making me somewhere around 9’ to the tip of it from the floor. I spent months growing my beard longer than I normally keep it, and it had gone sideways instead of long, so I ended up trimming the sides to give it the long look.Now, this cosplay was not a secret, but Jeric for some reason started asking for hints, so I started to treat it like one. I left hints all over the forum for him to find. Things like 'I'll be there with bells on!' and the like.
     
    I also had to pack some kitchen utensils, as I’m not entirely sure how but I was volunteered to produce cucumber sandwiches for a birthday party that was going to happen at some point during the con. I didn’t really know how many people were going to be there for it, or what I was going to be able to scrounge from the hotel, so I assumed I was going to need to slice up a lot of cucumber and allow for food allergies (I knew of one celiac in the group), so I brought my own sterilized knife, cutting board, and mandolin slicer and just hoped to find the actual foodstuffs there in San Francisco.
     
    == The Trip ==
     
    Everything went fine. Got to the airport in plenty of time Thursday morning. My wife dropped me off after my dog gave me a thorough ear washing. I had my cellphone, laptop, and a 1923 book on Galahad in my carry on in case of delay. Bag checking was self-serve, mostly and was annoyed at the $25 bag fee. I hadn’t realized the airline from Seattle to San Fran that I had picked (Alaska Airlines) didn’t include the first bag. TSA was as tedious as it normally is, though the lines moved fairly well.
     
    The flight itself was relatively uneventful, but the plane left 10-15 minutes late, and the headwind on the way delayed it further, so we landed 45 minutes after we were supposed to be there.
     
    Oh, and the San Fran airport is rather weird. It took forever to reach the baggage claim, which was poorly marked. I spent most of the time just following the people in front of me hoping they knew where they were going. And then I wandered around more looking for the hotel shuttle area, which was on a different floor than the taxi/bus area. Luckily Alaska pulls in on the International Terminal, which means when the shuttle eventually arrived I was one of the first people onto it. By the time the shuttle reached Terminal 2, it was full and the people there (and in the terminal after it) had to wait for the *next* shuttle, which was probably the same shuttle half an hour into the future. Most of the people got off at the Mariott though (including me by mistake, I couldn’t tell what was going on at that time, I got back on again immediately), so the shuttle was mostly empty when we got to the Hyatt.
     
    Checked in, got the cosplay unpacked so I could fluff the hat back up, and Skyped the rest of the Poniverse team to find out what was going on. Not much. The plane delay had put me behind and I had missed going for lunch with Troblems and Husband Horse, but a bunch of others were in Simon’s room and they were handing out the staff t-shirts and cards we had ordered for BABs. Koukatsu, 11th Doctor Whooves, MelonBlitz where there. Jeric and Rusty were still in flight. I’m not entirely sure when Batbrony and Simeon were due, but I knew SFyr and Stitch weren’t going to make it until at least midnight. And Lightwing had planned on coming, but had to cancel at the last minute. (Missed you, Lightwing!) Kou eventually took me to go meet Arty, a former Admin of this site and a friend I chat with on a regular basis, at the hotel bar with a bunch of people I vaguely knew from places but hadn't actually met before.
     
    Eventually Troblems made it back to the hotel. I glanced at the Registration line as we tried to gather people together to get *something* to eat. It was long, and wasn’t moving at all as I don’t think they had actually planned on processing badges until much, much later but people were anticipating it early for some reason. The diner across the road had changed its hours so that it was no longer open for dinner so that put a dent into plans, and it was like herding cats as any group of fans that size turns into. In any case Troblems, Husband Horse, Arty, and I ended up at In And Out Burgers just to get something.
     
    Got back and stood in Registration line. Kou had picked up one of the high-price badges so got shunted into a different line that was supposed to be faster. Somehow, I still ended up with my badge long before Kou did. I saw their line being moved from one side of the table to the other, but it didn’t seem like any of them were actually being processed. Supposedly there was a lot of confusion between them and Vendors or Panellists which ever one needed super-special badge processing and it caused the whole process to go wonky.
     
    Jeric still hadn't made it in yet due to some difficulties with connecting flights as I understand it. I showed the gang my cosplay, and told them that for some reason Jeric was thinking it was a secret, and I was trying to hint at it for him without being obvious. Kou came up with the idea of telling Jeric there was a scavenger hunt going on with pointless clues like 'The next clue is near water, possibly in the hotel' and other nonsense. We all thought that was hilarious, so went with that because Jeric is fun to tease. Other than that, it was just wandering around and getting used to the hotel layout. It’s under construction so it was rather oddly cramped in places.
     
    == Friday ==
     
    Opening Ceremonies was interesting. Being someone who does a bit of acting on the side, I do tend to be over-critical about stagecraft, so I apologize if any of this seems mean-spirited. The con chair himself needs a bit of stage training. He unfortunately presented like a corporate executive in business casual rather than a fellow fan at a convention, just a touch *too* professional. Then there were the mascots. Lots of them, which surprised me more than a little. I liked the fellow playing Andreas, he seemed to be the most ‘on the top’ of his lines and presentation. Unfortunately his costume was a special makeup job that worked close up, but at audience distance it wasn’t clear what was it supposed to represent. The fellow playing Diablo had a bit more trouble with stagecraft as he turned his back to the audience a couple of times during his lines and simultaneously blocked his fellow villain, which are both no-nos. And there weren’t enough microphones to go around so a lot of lines disappeared into the aether. It probably would have been better to turn the entire presentation around so the villains were stage left and the heroes on stage right so that the ‘necromancer’ could lead with his primary hand and keep his front to the audience, but I found out later the stage itself was set up oddly which likely limited what the skit director could do. All that equipment was probably rented, and the budget likely didn’t extend to an additional half-dozen clip-on wireless microphones, a bigger mixing board, and stage monitors. The script they were using was a little strained but it was trying for some silver-age comic feel, so that made sense. The fact they’re even attempting a con storyline was kinda cool. It’s not as common now as it used to be.
     
    Met the rest of the gang that I hadn’t met yet. Stitch and SFyr were a joy. I wanted to kidnap them and bring them home with me. SFyr had buttons he had made for us, including one of my OC.
     
    From there it was grab something vaguely like lunch before the Poniverse Panel. We didn’t plan the panel out much, as we had thought it was going to segue naturally into a Meetup right afterwards, so it was basically going to be ‘Introductions’, ‘What we do here’, ‘Questions’ and then flow into mingling and hanging out. Unfortunately, the Meetup was in a different room on a different floor, so there wasn’t the flow I had been hoping for. So I ended up talking a lot simply because I’m loud. I’m not an extrovert, and I actually suffer from fairly severe stage fright, but I’ve deliberately gone through extensive training for public speaking to cover that particular weakness I have. Walking up on stage still scares the hell out of me, to the point of being physically sick, but once I’m up there I’m good to go. Plus the Con Book had some kind of printing problem so many of the panels (including ours) were missing descriptions or had the descriptions cut off at odd points. Oh well.
     
    Run to the Meetup, and hung around with people talking about movies, both MLP, EQG, and the current batch of superhero movies. Especially about how hard DC is making it to be a fanboy of theirs. From there it was run to Costco to get the stuff for the birthday party. That went well, except for one really, *really* annoying thing. The whole point of me doing these cucumber sandwiches (from my point of view) was because one of our group is coeliac and can’t handle any gluten at all. So I had planned to make the gluten-free version first with my sterilized equipment so he could still join in on the party… And we couldn’t find any gluten free bread that was *actually* gluten free. So much of the so-called ‘gluten’ free products on the market now-a-days actually aren’t. They’re aimed at the silly diet fads, not at the people who are honestly allergic to wheat products, so they still use wheat or rye just in reduced amounts. We ended up with tiny rice crackers, which turned out to be flavoured and ruined that whole thing. Well, cucumber sandwiches still got made, and the people actually having the birthday got lots of cools stuff.
     
    From there I changed into my Starswirl the Bearded cosplay and went to the BABSquerade Dance. Here’s something where my con-going experience caused me to make a mistake. Everyone had been calling it “The Masquerade”, which is the term many big cons use for their costume contest. This was *actually* a masquerade, so I was a bit confused. Lots of people wanted pictures, which was cool. And I was fascinated by a fursuit I saw there. She (assuming) was Vinyl Scratch, doing poi (twirling two lit balls on cables). She was very good at the poi, but what caught my eye was the fabric of the fursuit. It was a very short, tightly woven fur, completely unlike the fun fur I’m used to seeing. The only thing I’ve seen even vaguely like that was some custom-order stuff that was two-way stretch fur and was hideously expensive, or shaved funfur which was still coarser than this stuff seemed to be. She was having a lot of people around her all the time, either for pictures or just to pester her, so I figured she’d be around later to ask about the fabric rather than add to the crowd of people now when she really wanted to just dance and have fun. It's a rule I have: I smile and greet cosplayers and celebrities (both fan and pro) and restrict myself to saying 'I really like your outfit/work'. I don't bother them beyond that unless they start the conversation, I know them already personally, or they are deliberately set up in a picture-taking area (which at this con seemed to be near the registration tables). They want to just go the con just like everyone else and being constantly interrupted, screamed at, and in really bad cases groped gets stressful for many people new to cosplay (and horsefame). At the Opening Ceremonies there was the now-standard announcement that 'Cosplay does not mean consent', and that applies to everyone, even other cosplayers. Now I have no problems with being asked for pictures and the like, but I go into it knowing full well that's what's going to happen because I started costuming as a performer, and many new cosplayers (and celebrities for that matter) don't so I don't want to add to their stress.
     
    I’m not a good dancer myself, so I eventually begged off and went back to the room for the night.
     
    == Saturday ==
     
    I’m awake early, because I’m still on farm hours, but my roommates are unconscious. According to Skype, they were up even earlier and crashed again, so I’m not going to pester them. So I futz around using the hotel wifi, do some mod work on the forums and get caught up on webcomics, youtube and tumblr subscriptions. I start writing some fanfic but I’m having trouble concentrating on any one thing so that doesn’t get far.
     
    Once I’m officially up and about, off to the Gen 1 panel. I have a thing for earlier gens, simply because I was around then as well and I understand the cultural conventions of the time. Some of them aren’t very good (Newborn Cuties), but they were all products of their time. The presenter is having technical difficulties as the projector is unable to do her videos for some reason. Probably something to do with the projector’s refresh rate, as it can handle the slide presentation and the sound of the video clips just fine. I wonder if that stuff is also rented, or if it belongs to the hotel?
     
    I had been telling people I wasn’t going to participate in the costume contest, but I was going to *go* to the costume contest. However, a fellow walking by in a Scorpan costume was having difficulty as some of his straps and fursuit had split on his shoulder. I ran to get my crash kit (a small kit with emergency costuming supplies carried by most costumers). Got back to the room where he was in line for judging and safety pinned him back together, and had people cajole me into entering myself. I was still a bit reluctant as I knew entering into a costume contest is effectively an all-day thing, with entry, judging, and so on, and I hadn’t prepared music or a skit for presentation. But all these little kids were saying I should do it and they wanted Starswirl to join them, so I couldn’t really say no at that point.
     
    The sheer number of entrants was amazing, the quality of the stuff everyone had built was wonderful, and the energy of the room was great. It put many costume cons to shame. When it came to the actual judging, I let the judges know that I was a journeyman costumer and to make sure to judge me at that level rather than as a novice. I also forgot to point out the cutie-marks I had made on my pants, but they were covered by the cloak, so it didn’t matter much. Workmanship judging took forever, but that’s normal.
     
    On the way to the actual costume contest I got waylaid by a group doing interviews. It was the talking head style where the interviewer is not shown or heard, just the interviewee restating the question and answering it. I get the feeling they were aiming for something, but I think I threw them for a loop as I have no fear of revealing my real name or anything like that. I’m too old, and been on the internet too long to keep any of that a secret. It takes like zero effort to figure out who I am and I’m completely open as to my hobbies to everyone I know and work with. Anyone who tries to Dox me is in for a bit of a surprise.
     
    Then it was down to the main hall to get ready for what I thought was going to be the stage walkthrough… and here I was thrown by my prior experience yet again. It was straight to the Presentation, which was walk on, walk off and everyone was lined up in full view of the audience. This is where I learned the stage setup was odd, with one side having the stage steps in view of the audience (far side from the main doors), and the other side the stairs were behind the curtain. So we go backwards from what I’m used to. Climb the stage in view of the audience, and disappear afterwards. And since the stage is right up against the back wall there isn’t really a ‘backstage’ area big enough for all the contestants. The bit behind the curtains on both wings are too small for all of us. So have to leave and go back out into the audience to sit and wait for the judgment where at most costume cons, the contestants are kept sequestered from the moment they put their costumes on to the moment judging is announced. The filly and colt category was first, and then the heroes (which is where I supposedly was) Things got out of order and my name wasn’t being called based on where I was in the line. I ended up chatting with DustyKatt who was doing a Rainbow Rocks Sunset Shimmer, complete with the guitar he had built in his videos. The two of us were wondering if I had gotten missed entirely, but I wasn’t bothered. I was doing this for a lark anyway; I wasn’t in it for the competition. But I did get called, and up I went. As I said, there was no ‘presentation’ here with a skit or music or anything, and everyone I had seen go up just went up, twirled, and walked off. So that’s what I did, as in Rome and all that. Some of the people later did a little more than that, when the villains and group categories were called, but not by much. Some of these costumes were truly impressive. I talked for a bit with a girl who had done up a Vinyl Scratch, completely with a Bass Bazooka and white leather jacket she had made. She ended up winning the Heroes category, and she deserved it. I got picked as Judges Choice by Kara Kosicka, which was more than enough for me. I tried to go up the stage to get my prize (A DHX lanyard) without using the stairs because finding the curtain part was annoying, and tripped on the cloak a bit.
     
    After that was the Charity Auction, which was fun. I got outbid on everything I went for. Oh well again. Then a silversmith panel which got called as the panellist decided he was too ill to do the panel right then. Then Toasty Writers where some panellists *became* too ill to do the panel right then for completely different reasons.
     
    Jeric got me a gift, a Doctor Whooves dogtag, which was exceedingly cool. It was payback for the teasing I had been doing to him all weekend. He’s funny to give gifts to, he goes all spluttery, so we had all joined on it.
     
    == Sunday ==
     
    G.M. Berrow’s panel, which was interesting, I like her books. Despite their intended reading level, she hides fascinating little tidbits throughout them.
     
    And finally get to the Vendors rooms for real. I had done it the day before, but real fast as I ended up in the costume contest unplanned. I think I threw Ambris for a loop, buying a complete set of ‘Adventuring is Magic’ prints. I wanted about four or five of them specifically, but I have this thing that once I reach a certain point I *have* to complete the set. Unfortunately he had two additional pieces that he didn’t have time to get printed before BABS, and he fully intends on doing a Starswirl the Bearded one soon. I’ll have to get those when I can. Very little Fleur de Lis stuff around, unfortunately. Got some fun buttons from a variety of places, a set of Tron/MLP crossover prints, and a selection of nametags. Luckily the nametags didn’t trigger the collector urge for some reason, as the complete set would have ended me.
     
    I missed the Dream Valley Meetup and the Roleplayers Meetup, but somehow caught the Princeless panel *and* most of the Pony Romance panel despite them being on the schedule at the same time? I’m not entirely sure how I did that, but I distinctly remember seeing the ends of both those panels but not the beginnings. Poor Silverquill, he had a few people giving monologues rather than succinct questions and he had to chivy the people along.
     
    Then was the Iron Artist where they convinced four fan-artists to try to do an art piece in a limited amount of time, in tempura (an extremely annoying medium if you’ve never used it, meant for fingerpainting in kindergarten), on a random subject chosen by the pro-artist judges. This time it was Star Trek/pony crossover in honour of Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. None of the fan-artists knew Star Trek very well, which was confusing to me, but then I realized how old I am, and how young all of them were. Bleh. They were getting the audience to ask questions of the judges and anyone who asked got to pick something from a toy bin. I got a question in about how much collaboration these particular artists do with the writers during the process (answer, as little as possible. ) and I gave my 'prize' to one of Jeric's kids as I recognized it as something that would trigger my collector problem if I had kept it. In any case, the winning entry was a Luna Redshirt which was surprisingly well done give the medium they were working in. Once the competition was over, they seemed puzzled as to what to do with the entries. I’m a bit surprised they didn’t auction them off right there for the charity this year, but because they hadn’t thought of that beforehand they weren’t sure they could legally do it. Too bad. I would have bid on the Luna piece.
     
    Closing Ceremonies, which went better than Opening Ceremonies. Still issues with microphones, and the main projector was supposed to be showing something that I at least couldn’t see from where I was sitting. The mascot performers seemed to be a bit more comfortable, and working it a bit more, which was cool. I finally clued in to the fact there had been a huge contingent of Australian Bronies who had come as one big group. And all those fine-furred fursuits I had been wondering about? Those were the Japanese Bronies who had also come as a big group. That’s why all the alicorns (they had Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, as well as several others) all followed a similar style with the wings at the small of their back rather than at the shoulder; they were all designed by the same person. I bet you that fabric is relatively common in Japan given the popularity of cosplay there. I never got a chance to ask them what the stuff was called so I could do a targeted websearch for it for my own purposes.
     
    Then it was off to dinner with Troblems, Horse Husband, Arty, and Troblem’s parents. The wind was stupid strong. I’m not used to that, it actually took the button that SFyr gave me as a present right off of my suspenders. Arty managed to spot it, and it was undamaged after skittering across the parking lot.
     
    Got back, visited the room the rest of the Poniverse Staff were hanging in, and said goodbyes to everyone, since I had to be *out* of the hotel at 4 to get on the plane back to SeaTac.
     
    == The Return ==
     
    Not much to report here. Got out of the hotel room without waking Troblems and Husband Horse, and waited for the shuttle. The wind was still stupid. Got to the airport no problem, but the check in desk wasn’t open, so had to sit around for a while. Once that was dealt with the same thing happened with TSA, and had to wait for that. Then it was a short wait, onto the plane, and… arrived at SeaTac *early*. The wind must have been going the right way. My wife and Stig (our dog) were waiting for me, and we went home. With unfortunately enough time to log into work remotely and handle a few meetings so I didn’t have to cash out another vacation day.
     

    == Summary ==
     
    I really enjoyed this. It’s been a long, long time since I enjoyed just being at a con. Most of the people seemed just happy to be there, and were enjoying each other’s company. The competition parts were friendly and not as stressed and angry as it is at other cons. There were lots of technical problems with the various bits of equipment not working at registration, panels and the main stage, but that’s a solvable problem and most people just worked around them. If I had to make one main suggestion: In the Pacific Northwest there are lots of mid-sized cons for various things, SciFi/Fantasy, Furry, Pony, Anime, etc. and at least some of them banded together to share equipment costs. They arrange to be on different weekends, and each gets to use a registration system, stage lights and sound, and panel equipment that an individual con of that size would never be able to afford on their own. It causes a bit of drama on occasion, but overall it seems to work.
     
    I hope I can manage to do this again.
  5. Fhaolan

    Videogames?

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: Do you play video games? If so, which ones? -@
     
    Not very often, to be honest. I just don't seem to have a lot of time.
     
    In general I don't like MMOs very much, and that's what a lot of games are pushed as now. I much prefer playing single-player games, or LAN games with a small group of friends, than a large number of unknown people. But they don't make many LAN-type games anymore, at least ones that aren't FPS'ers which my friends and I don't deal with much. I truly suck at PvP, so I migrate towards PvE and co-operative PvE games when dealing with multiplayer.
     
    However, I do play them on occasion. I played WOW for awhile, but got really bored with it and let my subscription lapse. I play Star Wars: The Old Republic with my wife whenever we get a chance. And I have a couple of characters on DC Online, but I haven't logged in for a bit.
     
    I *really* liked City of Heroes, and am still sad that's gone. It's the only game I've been able to play some of my characters the way I envisioned them, and not how the game forced me to play them.
     
    As for non-MMO games, I used to play a lot of real-time strategy games, but they absorb a lot of time which I don't have much of now.
     
    There's a couple of consoles in the house, but they're rarely used as gaming machines. We tend to use them as video repeaters, since we don't subscribe to cable TV, everything we watch is over Hulu or Netflix. When we do break out a console game, it's often something like Sacred, Fable, or Kill all Humans. (I'm using 'we' here, because whenever the console is being used as a game machine it's usually both my wife and I trying to play something together. Even if it's just one of us playing and the other one yelling non-helpful advice and commentary...) We tried some of the Star Ocean games, but we kept getting bad disks where we'd get half-way through the game and then it would just cease working entirely. So we gave up on that one.
  6. Fhaolan

    Acting?

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: You've done some acting? Have you been in anything I've seen?
     
    Highly unlikely.
     
    The only video-like stuff I've been in that actually got released... you only see the back of my head at best for a fraction of a second. I was a patron in the bar in Professional Courtesy, and you see the back of me charging someone at about 4:15 in this music video:
     
    I've also been in a lot of films that never got past the editing stage. You'd be surprised at how many movies never get finished. In those I've been cast as an ogre, a blacksmith, but usually as third barbarian from the left.
     
    Otherwise, I've done a number of small stage-plays. I played a priest in Cyrano DeBergerac, one of Tybalt's entourage in Romeo and Juliet, so on and so forth. Most recently I've been in a production of Aeterno Elementum as a Viking warrior who gets killed and brought back as some kind of servitor Undead, all backed by heavy metal music.
     
    Of course, I also used to perform a lot at renfaires as part of the Seattle Knights doing swordfights and the like. The fights for those are scripted, but all the rest is improv, feeding off of the audience and adapting to whatever they're interested in at the time.
     
    You may notice a theme. I don't do primaries. I do background stuff. I fill space. Somebody has to do it, and while I do get speaking parts, I don't really care about being a 'star'. Most of the parts I get is more doing a favor for a friend who needs bodies to take up the stage.
     
    This all is one of the reasons that I don't put a lot of effort into hiding my real identity online. There's not much point. Once you step up on stage, 'privacy' becomes a moot point. There's one trick when they send you pizza to prove they can find you. To me that's great, I'd really like some pizza. :comeatus:
  7. Fhaolan

    What do you read?

    By Fhaolan,

    Why do I get the feeling you're the only one reading these, @?
     
    Q: What kind of books do you read? Any favorites in particular?
     
    I read a lot. Mostly sci-fi and fantasy, though I do read a lot of non-fiction books on history, culture, architecture, crafting, etc.
     
    When I was young it was mostly Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkien, Poe, and Lovecraft. My more current lists lean more to Terry Prachett (Discworld, though I recommend the newer ones over the first few. In my opinion it took a bit for him to hit his stride), Jim Butcher (Dresden Files), David Weber (Empire of Man and Honor Harrington), and a smattering of others.
     
    As for the really old stuff: Morte d'Arthur, the Icelandic Sagas, and a lot of Celtic Myth catches my attention.
     
    I also read comics. I used to be a DC fan back in the 70's-80's, but I fell out of that particular thing in the 90's. I just got *bored* with DC comics in the 90's onwards. Now-a-days, I collect Asterix comics, and Usagi Yojimbo.
     
    Oh, and I have a guilty pleasure: Perry Rhodan. It's an old German sci-fi pulp series that has been published from the 1960's on (comprising of over 3,000 novellas now, I believe). I can't read German, so all I have is the English translations by Wendayne Ackermann (somewhere around 100 issues of the earliest novellas). The stuff's... really pulpy and I can't really say I 'recommend' it, but it fascinates me for some reason.
  8. Fhaolan

    Do you Remember? redux

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: Do you remember Rocky and Bulwinkle? from @
     
    Why yes, I do. Though to be honest, when I watched them they usually were put as bookend shorts on either side of other features I remember better. Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody, Underdog, etc.
     
    And yes, I am aware of the 1992 Boris and Natasha film, and the 2000's 'The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle' thing... dear lord, they should leave well enough alone. Those old cartoons were very much a thing of their times, and they do *not* translate into modern live-action/cgi monstrosities.
  9. Fhaolan

    Is your spouse a Brony?

    By Fhaolan,

    I just remembered being asked this one awhile back. Figured might as well put a detailed answer here.
     
    Q: You're married right? Is your wife in the fandom as well?
     
    Not... really. She's fully aware of the fandom, and that I'm part of it. She's watched clips of the show, and knows enough about it to be able to proofread/proofview what creative output I have and have a reasonably educated opinion. But that's all. In her own words, "I'm already into too many things right now."
     
    She's a fan of a lot of stuff; Lord of the Rings, Hammer Horror movies, Highlander, Jane Austin stuff, Doctor Who, British murder mysteries, anything by Issac Asimov, La Femme Nikita, so on and so forth. A good chunk of which overlaps with my own fandoms, but not all.
     
    In many cases her ability to be a 'fan' came pretty late in life. She had what to me was a very strange upbringing, mostly stemming from her mother who is a fanatical Baptist (to the point of being a kind of new Puritan), but was also a closet Trekkie who hid her Star Trek collection from everyone including her own daughter, out of shame and fear. This led to her punishing her daughter if she showed any signs of being a 'fan' just in case it accidentally revealed her own interests. This lasted until my wife because independent, going off to University (for Technical Writing), and was able to escape.
     
    Even then, my wife wasn't able to really enjoy being a fan of anything until much later. It's how we met, actually. Trying to exert her independence, she joined a live steel stage combat troupe. A kind of acting troupe that specializes in doing fight scenes on stage and on film using accurate weapons and armor in an effort to provide realistic looking (and sounding) fights. Mostly medieval and swashbuckling kind of thing. I was a TA in the troupe's academy at the time, having done medieval martial arts and the like prior to joining the troupe. The final set of classes are on advanced choreography for presenting large 'chaotic' group battlescenes, and dealing with the two most dangerous weapons to use on stage, the flail and the dagger. Now it's pretty obvious why the flail is dangerous, as it's impossible to pull blows using it without it looking damn stupid. But the dagger being in that list usually confuses people.
     
    The problem with it, is that it's small and fast. There's no margin for error when using a real dagger (dull, but still) up on stage. The audience is usually far enough away that it's hard to see the dagger and what you need to do to make it obvious that you've got this dagger, and you're doing something with it, means a lot of the standard tricks to make it safe don't work anymore. You have to be really, really precise with your movements. And with a lot of the realistic dagger maneuvers, there's no time or possibility for the 'victim' to be able to adjust if you make a mistake.
     
    So here I am as TA in this class. That basically means I'm a practice dummy. I get to stand there while people pretend to stab me with a knife, one so the students learn the right spacing and timing, and two so they get used to their 'victim' reacting correctly. And one day, when we're doing back kills, I forget to bring my maille hauberk. And the obvious happens.
     
    After this woman stabbed me in the back for real, I figure we've gotten the worst out of the way already, and we got married.
  10. Fhaolan

    Do you remember?

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: Do you remember cartoons like Beany and Cecil? - from @
     
    I do remember The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil from the late 80's, when I was in high school. But that memory was very vague and I had to look it up to refresh it. During which I found out there was a previous cartoon back in 1960 or so, which was in turn based on a live-action puppet show from the 50's. I don't remember those things though, as they predate even me.
     
    The 80's version wasn't very popular as I remember, and didn't really get a lot of play. I remember it being put in the same time-block as Inspector Gadget and Heathcliff, and basically getting shuffled around as Inspector Gadget took off in popularity. Beany and Cecil were too old-fashioned at that point, even with the revisions.
  11. Fhaolan
    Q: Okay, so if you were too old for MLP when it first came out, what kind of stuff did you watch when you were in MLP’s target demographic?
     
    Oh dear. When I was that age… well, I was in Ontario, Canada, which had a very strange mix of British and American imports at the time, with a smattering of stuff that was uniquely Canadian. The import stuff was often several years behind, due to the way importing TV worked then, and syndication and reruns were… confusingly organized. The end result was that there wasn’t that much in the way of cartoons running. There were the old standbys of Looney Tunes and the like, of course, but most of the airways were filled with very strange Live-Action kids shows, most of them made by one production company: Sid and Marty Krofft.
     
    So H.R. Puffenstuff,
    , , and the (with Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug, etc.) is mostly what I remember from that time. 
    For evening shows there was also
    (with Jon Pertwee), , and (a uniquely Canadian bad sci-fi), and when I was a little bit older Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, and so on.
  12. Fhaolan

    Are you a farmer?

    By Fhaolan,

    Q: Somebody mentioned you’re a farmer?
     
    Sort of? My wife and I live out in the sticks, and we do have four sheep to look after.

    (I don't have a good picture of the fourth, as she's new) My wife spins the wool into thread for use in weaving, knitting, and the like, and we sell that at craft and renfaires in various places in the region. We also have two horses, but we don’t currently have enough property to house them here, so we board them at a different place not that far away. (Yep, that's me in picture with the Belgian. That was several years ago, so I'm far more grey now. )

     
    Eventually we want to get a place big enough to have a full flock of sheep, and keep the horses, but we’re not really making much progress towards that goal.
     
    I do have a real full-time job working for Microsoft, supporting internal business databases and the like, so I’m really a ‘hobby farmer’.
  13. Fhaolan

    How old?

    By Fhaolan,

    Continuing the 'Ask Fhaolan' with what is possibly the most common question I get:
     
    Q: Are you really that old?
     
    Yeah, my age in my profile is accurate. While the majority of bronies are teen/early 20’s, you’d be surprised how old some of us are.
     
    I’m not the oldest member of this site, by a long shot, but I’m currently the oldest staffer by a month or so. There’s a whole slew of us ‘older bronies/pegasisters’ on this site, and a lot of us have masked ages so you’d never know.
     
    Yes, it’s technically possible for me to be the grandfather of some of our youngest members, but only barely.
     
    While I'm old enough to have watched all the previous generations of MLP when they broadcast/whatever, I have to admit that I didn't. I have, however, gone back and watched all of them now. And while many of them were ... poor, there are a couple of G4 FiM 'events' that are worse than anything the prior generations came up with. (http://mlpforums.com/blogs/?showentry=8799) So don't get too complaisant.
  14. Fhaolan

    The Crystal Empire

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Season 3. A weird season overall for various reasons.
     
    Why did I get sick just when I got two two-parters to go through. Forgive me if this note-taking is a bit incoherent, or a veer into areas I normally don't touch.
     
    The Crystal Empire (Part 1 and 2) (November 10 2012, 2 x 22 minutes)
     
    Summary: The Return of the Crystal Empire, and yet another 'big threat' from Celestia's past comes with it.
     
    This is actually one I've gone over a lot in my worldbuilding blog, because there are a lot of bits and pieces that need making sense of. So this note-taking is likely going to point to that blog every once in awhile.
     
    Guard actually doing something. Delivering an incredibly vague message. Who sent it? This is obviously a pre-arranged message to indicate something, so does Celestia have Guards set up all over Equestria and beyond each with a short code phrase to indicate different unlikely but expected to happen at *some* time events?
     
    And Celestia is this in terms of a test? Weird.
     
    Heya Luna! The Empire cannot fall *again*, because it's magic is too dangerous to lose control over.
     
    Here is evidence that Celestia deliberately obscures history that she views as dangerous. She says her knowledge of the Empire is limited, but she was there, physically at the time.
     
    King Sombra. Physically he's quite different from other unicorns. The curved horn, the slit eyes, the pointed teeth, the odd black with white chevrons bit on his muzzle that I'm not sure what that is supposed to represent. The armor is fascinating, it recalls many 14-15th century suits of Spanish full harness I've seen, especially with the fluted collar at the top.
     
    Turned into shadow, and put a curse on the empire to make it vanish. This recalls Tambelon from G1's My Little Pony and Friends, but also Brigadoon and many other mythical 'cursed' towns that appear and disappear on a semi-regular basis.
     
    The fact that this city is referred to as an Empire is odd. There are two ways you get to be an Empire. One, you have several distinct cultural or ethnic groups being dominated by a central authority, and it has to be *several* distinct groups, or the ruler declares him/herself Emperor in a bid to elevate him/herself among nominal peers. But in this case we've only got one known cultural group, the Crystal Ponies, and the ruler is proclaiming himself King rather than Emperor. There has to be a lot more behind this to support the 'Empire' name. I've speculated about possibilities around this in my worldbuilding blog.
     
    The Crystal Empire has some kind of repeater built into it, that causes whatever the Crystal Ponies to feel to be felt by everyone across Equestria. Bingo, there's the Empire moniker. It's not being used in a political/militiary manner, it's emotional domination and mind control. Technically Equestria then is *part* of the Empire when this Imperial City is operational.
     
    Brief glance of Celestia pulling off 'dark magic'.
     
    Celestia is being a bit of an ass, really. And Luna isn't helping.
     
    Where exactly is this train normally going? Rails have to be laid down and maintained to support a train, and unless there's regular traffic on this route it's not going to be passable. Especially with this kind of climate. There's a station here, with a sign with a symbol of a mountain range on it, but no text. I'd accept that it was just a refuelling depot, and but there's an obvious passenger station. Was this station put in just for the purposes of the Guard with the code phrase? Is there a real destination somewhere beyond the Crystal Empire?
     
    Shining Armor's Hoth outfit. Cute.
     
    For something that is supposed to be 'turned into shadow' Sombra's being treated and reacted to as an active threat.
     
    Dark crystals can obviously disrupt unicorn magic. Honestly, story-wise I think this is a mistake. I think they should have reversed Shining Armor and Cadence here, with Shining doing the shield spell, which he had demonstrated before, and Cadence be the one attacked and limited by Sombra. But then, I thought the last episode with those two had their roles reversed as well. And not in a 'genre busting' sense of role reversal, just characters being better suited if they were in each other's roles.
     
    Architecture in the Crystal Empire is appropriately fantastic, making all the buildings look like they're carved out of crystal. The central... palace? looks very much like an oversized Eiffel Tower blending with the Chateau de Chambord. While the Eiffel Tower has aged well, originally it was considered a hideous travesty of engineering used purely to advertise a World Fair (1889), like many similar towers and things spotted all over. It's the roofscape of the Chateau with it's 16th century French deliberately overelaborate towers, chimneys, minarets, etc. that has been borrowed here to make this crystal palace appearance a bit less industrial and more artistic.
     
    But that just... they were there! Okay fine, Mr. Exposition Dump. What Cadence is doing is not a shield spell, but extending her 'love' special ability to cover the entire city, and this is acting like a shield to keep Sombra at bay. I didn't catch that the first time watching this.
     
    A thousand years have passed, but no linguistic shift whatsoever.
     
    All the cutie-marks are repeated over and over again, but they are unique to the area. Bow and arrows, desert oasis, olive branch, a single fluer de lis.
     
    The script on the book is distinct from the scripts we've seen before.
     
    The jousting armor Rainbow Dash is putting on is a highly decorative variant of the armor the various Guards wear. Odd that it isn't in the same or similar style as Sombra. Which means that the Guard armor is truly traditional, dating back a thousand years? To the same period that Celestia and Luna defeated Discord. Highly unusual, unless the modern Guard armor is actually a revival of antique styles. There are differences, so it would be similar to the resurrection of the 15th century Kettle Hat in World War I as the Brodie Helm in England, the Salet came back as the Stahlhelm in Germany. There's only so many ways armor actually works with the way the body moves, so there's really only so many 'styles'.
     
    Flag of many hues... Unless we're dealing with iridescence, that flag is of three hues, so that's a bit confusing.
     
    Crystal berries. Pair those up with zap apples and you've got another market Applejack.
     
    And baaaaaaa. Interesting that the crystal properties extends to *specific* other creatures, but is not general.
     
    Flugelhorns are real instruments that look only vaguely like those. It's basically a trumpet with a different shape to the bore, giving it a deeper more mellow sound. What Pinkie's gotten ahold of is more like a double bell euphonium, also a real instrument which has a far more complicated appearance than that and but has the two bells. They were first made in 1880, and they stopped making them in 1960 because almost nobody liked to play the stupid things.
     
    That crystal heart is a nice try, but Twilight is obviously not a sculptor.
     
    The hairstyles are very Greek.
     
    Well, not quite what they thought, but the idea did work to trigger the memories.
     
    Oopsie.
     
    For all he does do much yet, Sombra's being presented as being quite the threat here.
     
    Part 2
     
    And that's basically where Sombra looses some of his threat. They should have lost the outer ring of the city or something a bit more severe.
     
    Standard D&D dungeon design, the treasure is in the back of the deepest basement, or the top of the tallest tower.
     
    And Twilight duplicates dark magic with only having seeing Celestia do it once. Again. Huh.
     
    And the door of despair. A rather nasty trick, but it honestly has the feel of a delaying tactic rather than a permanent trap. For some reason it doesn't really seem to be your true 'worst fear', but more your worst surface fear.
     
    Mind you, if Spike has screamed out 'Mommy!' right then, it would have ended me.
     
    The Crystal Ponies themselves should be participating in this. Not just watching.
     
    Reversing gravity, for those specific individuals. Not technically flying.
     
    I would have thought the door itself would have had an alarm on it to alert Sombra, not just close proximity, but okay. He's not quite as careful as presented.
     
    Oh, that's nice. An effective anti-teleportation field, a dark magic trick by the effect.
     
    Wife throwing. There's a hilarious fanfiction on that. Martial Bliss
     
    And the full crystallization effect. Which will turn out to temporary. The crystallization effect changes the girl's manestyles as well, which is an odd effect.
     
    But not Shining Armor. No manestyle change for the guys. That's a bit sexist.
     
    And the at the time mysterious book appears.
  15. Fhaolan

    Rescue at Midnight Castle

    By Fhaolan,

    As I mentioned in my main blog, I'm going to be doing something stupid here. I'm going to be watching MLP, from the beginning. And I mean the *beginning*. These are my notes I took while watching the episodes. Note, I am in no way a critic. I have no qualifications whatsoever, and my primary purpose doing this is to glean any interesting tid-bits that can be used to build up the society, culture, and history of the My Little Pony world. So a lot of these notes will be about architecture, clothing, apparent technology, and the cultural mores displayed in the episodes. Plus just some silly things I noticed during the episode.
     
    They are presented in the order I wrote them as I was watching the episode with minimal editing.
     
    Let's start with the first ever broadcast show for My Little Pony.
     

     
    My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle (G1 Animated Feature, 1984, 22 minutes)
    Originally known simply as My Little Pony, and sometimes as Firefly's Adventure. My Little Pony had existed for three years as a toy line before this. The first animated feature was made as a pilot for a continuing series. It was released as a stand-alone special and followed up by two other films before the series actually kicked off in two years later in 1986. The title Rescue at Midnight Castle was the name given to it when it was reworked into being part of the series. These notes are from the original version, not the reworked one.
     
    Summary: The land of the Ponies are invaded by dragons, and Firefly goes searching for help. She brings back the human Megan, and a magic rainbow to try to defeat the master of Midnight Castle, Tirek, before he brings on eternal night.
     

     
    Pegasi can interact with rainbows as if they are liquid, using it as a waterslide. Which may actually turn into a rainbow-like waterfall. Not sure what I'm seeing there with that transition.
     
    Classic Late Norman-style castle with round towers. Bet you it's supposed to be a single keep rather than an enclosing curtain wall. Either that or the scale here is really weird.
     
    Hey Firefly. Pony that eventually becomes Rainbow Dash.
     
    Hey color-swap Twilight.
     
    Unicorns can teleport, but it seem to take concentration and effort.
     
    Hey Applejack. Get used to being smashed into by Rainbow Dash-like pegasi, pretty much every incarnation of you has that happen.
     
    Theme song and action indicates a kind of paradise. "No threat in sight." Odd phrasing.
     
    And suddenly the dark themes kick in so hard it's whiplash time. Right at the end of the utopian theme song, a Dragon attack.
     
    Strange creature is riding one of the dragons, looks like an anthropomorphized manticore.
     
    Villain of the episode is mentioned as Tirek (This manticore guy's pronouncing it Tee-Rak), Master of Midnight Castle, while manticore-guy is being all threatening-by-proxy.
     
    Hey Spike.
     
    Okay, manticore guy has a name. Scorpan. Yeah, still fitting the manticore theme.
     
    Tirek's handling that sack like it's a pet cat.... It beats like a heart? Yikes. Not pulling any punches on this 'little girl show'.
     
    He needs exactly four ponies for his chariot. Not sure why.
     
    Okay, here we are at the human world. This would be Megan.
     
    Firefly shows up, and Megan is confused by the talking, flying pony. So the human world doesn't know about My Little Pony-like creatures at this point.
     
    Actual real pony is in the background.
     
    Architecture and clothing of the human world is 60's-80's. Megan's speech patterns indicate America, probably northern California. Could be earlier as what she's wearing (basic overalls and blouse) was technically around since the 1900's but unlikely to be anything other than the broadcast date.
     
    Firefly basically kidnaps Megan, for no real reason. She's got that Player Character glow, I guess.
     
    And flies to the pony world with no magical transition at all. Just go above the clouds and back down again after a song.
     
    Dragon attack again. And Megan is almost double kidnapped. Scorpan saves her from falling? Okay.
     
    Hey Shining Armour? Nope just the same color scheme. Hold on. Pausing to find out which pony this is. Goes by the name of Glory, apparently.
     
    Lizard men with halberd-like weapons. Nope, I'm wrong, they're stylized glaive-forks, using standard nomenclature.
     
    Better look at Tirek. He's a minotaur/centaur-like thing. The sack he's always petting contains some kind of artifact that 'by the power of darkness' can transform ponies into dragons. That's what he wanted for pulling his chariot. Why doesn't he use all those dragons he was sending to kidnap the ponies in the first place?
     
    Ponies travel to find a 'Moochick' that supposedly has magic powers.
     
    Applejack falls off a bridge into deep river/bay and Megan jumps after her. Ponies don't seem to be able to swim very well at all, unlike real ponies. Unless it's just Applejack who can't swim.
     
    Oh god. Sea ponies. Megan and Applejack seem just as confused as I am.
     
    Magic Mushrooms... *sigh*.
     
    Rabbit in trousers. Seems to be Moochicks' familiar.
     
    This Moochick is a gnome of some kind.
     
    Another artifact, a Rainbow of Light. Or 'a piece of one' contained in a red heart locket.
     
    Midnight Castle. Extremely fantastic evil overlord-style, with a glory of turrets, all set on top a pillar of stone in the sea. It would take so many different historic references combined together to even come up with a vague resemblance to this one, it's not worth it.
     
    Dark Rainbow magic seems to have some kind of time limit or count down. Everybody, even the villains, are concerned about getting stuff done before Midnight strikes.
     
    Scorpan is only vaguely a villain.
     
    Rainbow of Darkness is the formal name.
     
    Applejack makes an good dragon. More fangy/tusky than the kidnapping dragons.
     
    Megan seems to be prone to kidnapping.
     
    Night that never ends. Where have I heard that one before? Well, technically this on came first so.... yeah.
     
    Scorpan can actually fly on his own.
     
    Tirek need to hold on to things better if he wants to rule the world.
     
    More unicorn teleporting. Slight delay between disappearance and appearance.
     
    Pony Castle is officially named Dream Castle.
     
    Rainbow of Light beats Rainbow of Darkness, but it was up in the air for a bit. Visual effect very much like the Elements of Harmony.
     
    Tirek is sucked into the sky beyond the clouds by the Rainbow of Light. Wonder where he went?
     
    All the Rainbow of Darkness stuff is undone. Lizardmen were originally birds, kidnapping dragons are butterflies, and Scorpan is actually a human prince. So there are human kingdoms in this land.
     
    And Spike is still Spike, and gets to stay with the ponies at Dream Castle.
  16. Fhaolan

    Friendship Ahoy!

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Friendship Ahoy! (Comic Issues 13-14, November 20th, December 18th 2013)
     
    The Mane 6 are off to Horseshoe Bay for a day a the beach. Horseshoe Bay is on the official map, just below Baltimare.
     
    Characterwise Fluttershy is suffering from the same problem she had with the Breezies.
     
    Wait... why are the pineapples up in palm trees? Pineapples grow on bushes... Oh, Applejack has just decided on a weird way of delivering pineapple juice to Rarity. She seems to be doing it the hard way. The pineapple juice has an effect like strong alcohol on ponies, producing a similar effect to sodium thiopental or amobarbital. There are several natural plants that produce that kind of effect, including Scopolia which is also used as a medicine used for seasickness, but pineapple is a new one on me.
     
    In any case, it appears Horseshoe Bay is approximately their equivalent to Florida, with pineapples, palm trees, and the like. As always true in this series the time taken in travel is completely glossed over, making it seem like you can get from Ponyville to Horseshoe Bay in an hour or two at most.
     
    And a pirate ship! Interesting choice to have the skull and crossbones as an actual sail rather than a flag.
     
    And a pirate, complete with pegleg. Peglegs have been used since *forever*, and even in the modern day many amputees prefer a simple
     
    pegleg over modern prosthetics. Peglegs, hooks and the like were associated with pirates, as most navies forced retirement of people who had those kinds of accidents on shipboard, unless you were already of pretty high rank. So in order to keep plying the sea, those people turned to the more illegal careers.
     
    Ha! Gallopinghost Islands. Well done. In this setting those islands are apparently hard to find. In RL the Galapagos Islands are on the other side of Central America from the Caribbean. So if they are following RL, they will need to pass through the Equestrian equivalent of the Panama Canal, or go all the way around. This might be why they say only the brightest navigator can find them, because they're in the wrong ocean to begin with.
     
    The pirate ship is a typical cartoon galleon, with three masts, fore and aft castles, and so on. The number of sails are reduced from RL, but that's typical for artistic purposes.
     
    The pirate captain is talking about the ship being very fast, especially in this 'castaway current'. I had to ask some sailor friends of mine, and they have no idea what he's talking about. That's not a term they're familiar with.
     
    They're trying to do a Captain Jack Sparrow with this character, appropriating Johnny Depp's speech affectations and slang.
     
    Swashbuckling is an old term referring to people who fought with a sword and shield. Specifically a later-period cut and thrust sword (the military version of rapier, with a slightly shorter and wider blade), and a buckler (a small metal shield, usually round and held with a handle in the center, but sometimes square or shaped like corrugated siding.)
     
    They've arrived at Gallopinghost, and they're presenting it like Tortuga in Haiti. Several governments fought over who controlled Tortuga, but due to it's tiny size and honestly poor strategic location, it constantly reverted to self-rule allowing buccaneers to run rampant.
     
    Cute, the various pirates here are clones of other characters. There's a Big Mac and a Granny Smith clone, and so on.
     
    The various stallions are being drawn far more horse-like than ponies normally are. It's entirely possible that several of these are supposed to be from Saddle Arabia originally.
     
    The sword Rainbow Dash pulled is a falchion-like cutlass, often called a cuttoe in English.
     
    Which switches to a Kilij (a turkish sword) in the next page. In the mean time we have a Goonies reference from Rainbow Dash.
     
    *sigh* Nobody noticed Twilight was an alicorn until now? Is there some kind of perception filter (from Doctor Who & Torchwood) going on?
     
    It's a magic map!
     
    Crab vs Rarity? Ghost crab? Nope, just hyped up on energy drinks.
     
    Stuff, stuff, stuff. And here we get to the point where this crosses over with the Shining Sea storybook. We meet the mermares again. Slightly more show-style, but still looking like coronetfish. We learn that they are somewhat xenophobic as a rule, and have laws against associating with land ponies.
     
    Which they break due to the power of love.
     
    Twilight uses the spell from the Shining Sea storybook, and seems to be considering it permanent this time.
     
    And we find out that mantahawks (yet again from the storybook), are normally from the shallows are rarely venture out into deep sea.
  17. Fhaolan
    See * for disclaimer
     
    Under the Sparkling Sea (Illustrated Novel, April 23rd 2013)
     
    I wasn't going to do this one, as I was limiting myself to the show, the comics, and a few of the books that turned out to be referenced in the show itself. However, I discovered recently that this book was referenced in the comics, so it's valid. Though I'm going through it now, I'll put it into the jumplinks on the side there as being in the publish date.
     
    It also has taken me awhile to get this one, due to a weird glitch in the Kindle copy of the storybook. On the Windows Kindle reader, the book auto-minimizes. Every single time you open it. Very weird. However, I discovered by accident that there is a Cloud Kindle reader that works just fine.
     

     
    To start with the art style is a bit distracting. It's somewhere between G3 and G4 and looks very odd. However, it does seem to suit the style of storytelling. Despite the publish date, we're dealing with pre-Princess Twilight here, so this takes place before the end of Season 3.
     
    We have a reference to an 'Annual Aquastria Race' taking place at First Moon Tide, hosted by King Leo of Aquastria. Twilight and Spike are both aware of this Aquastria right at the beginning, and that it's an underwater kingdom. First Moon Tide is a weird way of marking a specific date, but perhaps we're dealing so far underwater that the tide is detectable by changes in currents, but the moon itself isn't immediately visible. I'm going to have to assume it's the first full moon of the year. Which is an interesting question, when does Equestria put the New Year? In the west we've become used to it being in the winter, but other cultures usually have it being the birth of the new year (start of spring), or the death of the old year (end of fall). The early Romans had the winter actually being not part of the year at all.
     
    Twilight has the relevant spell on hand, as usual. Giving the Mane 6 gills and fins, but not transforming them into full seaponies. Fluttershy reveals that the ponies consider the seaponies to be their 'cousins'. Twilight's spell doesn't work on non-ponies, so spike gets a fishbowl stuck on his head.
     
    A new creature for the bestiary: A manta-hawk. Weird blending of manta ray and raptor, obviously used for heavy transport underwater.
     
    First visual of the new G4 seaponies (allowing for the unusual art style of course.) They're not far off the seaponies of G1, though a bit more RL seahorsie. They're approximately the same size as regular ponies, if perhaps a bit smaller. No obvious cutie-marks.
     
    Architecture is typical fantasy underwater, built to resemble a variety of seashells and corals.
     
    And here we have King Leo himself, who's appearance is far more lionfish. In fact there are other creatures in the background who are also far more fish than seahorse in design, having tailfins. Are those all 'seaponies' or are seaponies just a segment of the population?
     
    We are also introduced to jellyflies, which appear to be a combination of butterfly, firefly, and jellyfish.
     
    And here we have the mermares. Which appear to be giant Cornetfishes. Basically they're to the seaponies what the Saddle Arabians are to regular ponies. Larger and formed slightly different. In this case they have manes that go all the way down their back, and tailfins. Mermares are either shy, or xenophobic. I'd say shy, as xenophobes wouldn't even show up to mingle like this.
     
    Apparently turtles are part of this society as well.
     
    However, there are a mix of creatures that live on the outskirts of Aquastria. Narwhales appear sentient, while water weasels, foxfins, crabbits, and star mice appear to be animal-level creatures.
     
    The race is a standard relay race, and seems to change location yearly as this is the first time through Crabbit Canyon.
     
    Nothing else really occurs world-building wise, but there was quite a lot for a simple storybook.
  18. Fhaolan
    Here we go, back to what I'm good at: Worldbuilding using real-life historical models.
     
    Part of the thing to realize here is that real-life titles are confusing as all get-out because they evolved over time. So it's not actually that unusual to have Empires ruled by Kings, or Kingdoms ruled by Princes. It happens surprisingly often. Modern usages of these terms gives the impression that noble titles are very fixed and specific and slot into a clearly defined hierarchy, which is about as far from the truth as you can get.
     
    Let's start with the idea that the Crystal Empire as a name is likely inaccurate in the same way the Kingdom of Equestria is inaccurate. The Crystal Empire is a single city making it a pretty poor empire, and using modern naming conventions it should be the Principality of Equestria as it is ruled over by the Princes/Princesses/Principals of Celestia and Luna.
     
    In real life there are currently several Principalities still in existence that we could look at for inspiration: Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Catalonia, and Asturias. Interestingly the Principality of Andorra is reigned over by two co-princes.
     
    Normally this would be enough, and we could use these small nations for models for Equestria. However, that would ignore the fact that the term Prince has other meanings and usages that many people are unaware of. These other meanings lead to far more interesting places, including possible direct ties between the Kingdom of Equestria and the Crystal Empire.
     

     
    Prince originates from the Latin Princeps, meaning either ‘first to seize’ or 'first citizen' depending on who you ask. Basically Prince is a generic term that can be applied to any ruler. It’s still used that way in the Catholic Church, as the Pope, Cardinals and Bishops are all referred to as ‘Princes’.
     
    In most of history titled nobility (Kings, Dukes, Counts, etc.) were referred to as ‘Princes’ when their exact position in the hierarchy was considered irrelevant, or was unclear. Mainly because in Europe the hierarchy wasn’t as fixed as people seem to think now-a-days. In reality a Count could outrank a Duke due to seniority, wealth, or where exactly the title came from. A Baron owing direct fealty to the Emperor could outrank a Count owning direct fealty to a King who owed direct fealty to that same Emperor. The titles themselves tended to all mean the same thing (‘leader’) in a riot of different languages, all getting smashed together when the various countries invaded each other. So ‘Prince’ was just easier to deal with as a generic term.
     
    This points out an interesting thing about Prince Blueblood. The original intent was that Blueblood would be a Duke, not a Prince, but Hasbro supposedly insisted on the change the same way they insisted on Celestia being a Princess instead of a Queen. With the preceding information in mind, it is entirely possible Blueblood *is* a Duke, but is being referred to as a Prince using that older definition. Same with Celestia. This satisfies both sides of that particular debate, but again there is farther we can go using historical models. First a sidetrack about noble pseudo-relationships.
     

     
    Now, another thing that can be noticed is that all alicorns are Princesses, and it is implied that it is by definition. We know of five official alicorns in the show, all of which are or were Princesses: Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and the unnamed princess who was victim of the love potion in Hearts and Hooves Day. I have an odd thought about that last alicorn and her relationship to Celestia and Luna, but I’ll get back to her later as I have enough thoughts around the nature of alicorns to make up a blog post of its own.
     
    In any case, using Cadence and Twilight as examples, and pulling information from the Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell book which may or may not be canon depending on who you ask, and seeing Rarity's reaction to Twilight's transformation, we can infer that alicoronation is rare enough that most ponies are unaware of the process, but does happen often enough for there to be a need for Celestia to formalize the relationship between herself and these younger alicorns. And so she automatically adopts any new alicorns as her ‘neices’ or ‘nephews’ simply to prevent any political issues from arising. As official relatives of the reigning monarch, these adoptions confer the generic 'Prince' or 'Princess' title on the adoptees, protecting them politically by giving them status without necessarily giving them any real authority.
     
    However, why was Blueblood referred to as a nephew of Celestia as well? He’s not an alicorn, nor is he the son of Celestia’s sister or brother. As far as we know, Celestia only has one sister, and I doubt Blueblood is Luna’s son.
     
    There is another explanation. Old European nobility tended to call each other cousin, even if there was no blood shared, in order to cement their noble status via fictional relationships. That and large chunks of European nobility *were* cousins due to inbreeding, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt there.
     
    Which means that Blueblood as one of the top nobility in Canterlot would want to establish a tie to Celestia, the ruling Princess also currently of Canterlot. However, as an effectively immortal alicorn at least a thousand years old, Celestia is a bit of a reach to call ‘cousin’. But Cadence, as a young mortal alicorn with an assumed noble rank, isn’t that much of a stretch. In the convoluted logic of nobility, as Princess Cadence is niece to Celestia and if Blueblood can call Cadence cousin, that makes him also a nominal nephew of Celestia and cements his claim to be called ‘Prince’.
     
    This is all airy-fairy nonsense, but that’s the way nobility actually worked. It’s all politics, and talking a good game.
  19. Fhaolan
    See * for disclaimer
     
    Inspiration Manifestation (April 26th 2014 22 minutes)
     
    Ponyville Foal and Filly Fair. Sounds like a festival specific to Ponyville. In RL, 'foal' maps to the human term 'child' as in all stages of life prior to puberty. We've not really run into what the ponies call the stage of life between puberty and full adulthood (what would map to human teenagers), and there isn't a horse term equivalent. Colt and Filly as terms apply to horses of the appropriate gender pre-adulthood, so includes the 'teenage' years, but there isn't a gender-neutral term. Heck, we've not actually been able to definitely identify any 'teenage' ponies in the show yet. For all we know there really isn't a pony life stage between the CMC and the Mane 6.
     
    No, the puppeteer is correct. Rarity needs to pay more attention to functionality with her projects.
     
    Cartons of... ice cream? They *look* like cartons of ice cream. Sorbets have existed since about 200 B.C., but 'ice cream' as most would recognize the term dates from the early 1700's, first sold commercially in 1851, but first appeared in modern cartons in 1926.
     
    More grimoires hidden behind secret doors in libraries.
     
    Woah. Spike has a far more dangerous fire than we've previously seen. There was no effort behind melting that lock off.
     
    And I quote: 'Who *builds* things like this?'
     
    I've never really identified those green protrusions on Spike's back as actual 'spikes'. More like plates. But he thinks of them as spikes it seems.
     
    Load bearing book. That's different. It's usually a load bearing villain.
     
    Yep. Ice cream. Vanilla Oat Swirl... That actually doesn't sound that bad. Bit odd, but then putting oats into sausage may sound odd to others, but that's a standard Scottish thing (that's pretty much what haggis is. Sausage that includes oatmeal. If you think any of the other ingredients to Haggis sound awful, remember that a sausage tube is actually intestine.)
     
    Green magic. Why is green magic always depicted as evil in this show? Is that actually indicative of something? I'm not sure.
     
    Classic temptation story. Interesting to see it from a second-party point of view.
     
    Interesting, the tree in the background of the children's party has flowers of multiple colors. I'm not aware of any flowering tree in RL that has multiple different color flowers on the same tree.
     
    Uhm. She changed ponies into *other* ponies. That's... nasty. Was it a physical location swap, did they just gain the appearances of those other ponies, or... Yeah, let's not get into the ors, as they get progressively more unpleasant.
     
    The mayor is coming to Princess Twilight for help. Not that this is much different from what happened before, but now it's not Twilight's help being forced on the mayor. Definitely a societal shift in behavior.
     
    Why didn't Spike fire-teleport the book to Celestia? Probably didn't think of it, or perhaps he thinks magical items don't mix with his fire-teleport. Have we had any instance of him teleporting magic items.
     
    Where did the green magic go? Probably wherever Spike's comic book went as well. Somewhere in Equestria there's a store of 'bad magic things Spike's responsible for' repository.
     
    Ah, and it was very deliberate. Dark magic is actually green. At least every instance of labeled dark magic we've seen is 'green'.
  20. Fhaolan

    Pinkie Pride

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Pinkie Pride (February 1st 2014, 22 minutes)
     
    Summary: A stranger blows into town, and Pinkie Pie's position as premier party pony is put into peril!
     
    Ah, Appleloosa. Complete with the buffalo, which is good.
     
    Cheese Sandwich, done up as Clint Eastwood's portrayal of the 'Man With No Name' (a stock western character) in the Dollars Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and the most famous The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly). Like a lot of westerns, this trilogy is adapted from a Jidaigeki, a Japanese period drama, by the name of Yojimbo.
     
    Pinkie apparently keeps several businesses afloat, as some of these vendors likely only get a little traffic outside of Pinkie. Mind you, I'm not seeing any bits changing hands... likely Pinkie has credit accounts with these ponies given the amount of buying she must do.
     
    Also interesting that the vendors tend to dress in 1920's outfits just like Flim and Flam did. Specifically boater's straw hats and jackets.
     
    You know, I wonder if Weird Al picked his character's name? Because it somehow sounds like a regular pony name, and yet not at the exact same time.
     
    But... wouldn't her birthday *always* be on the same day she moved to Ponyville then? Unless pony calendars work is a really strange .... actually, that makes sense that they might have a far more complex calendar system than what we're used to, given they are in effective control of the seasons and day/night cycles. As such, birthdays may be on a different cycle as that's driven by physiology, where other celebrations may be on the manually determined calendar of seasons.
     
    In the operating theatre, the lights are all firefly-driven, not the electric lights we know exist.
     
    Are they still trying to build that highrise? That's the same building that kept getting busted apart in the Mare-do-Well episode.
     
    Pinkie's room is round, matching the cupcake on top of Sugarcube Corners.
     
    And here we have the shocker. There seem to be four Pie sisters. This picture shows a filly that seems slightly older than the other three that did not appear in the Cutie Mark Chronicles episode. This matches the Pinkie Pie novel 'Pinkie Pie and the Rockin' Ponypalooza Party'. There's a good chance this is the 'Maud Pie' that is mentioned as a future episode title.
     
    I just noticed, the clocks aren't ticked the same way our clocks are. There should be 12 ticks all the way around a clock face, but these only have eight. And with some spot checking, that seems to be normal in the pony world. And each tick is for 10 minutes. So they have 80 minutes in an hour, rather than our 60. Yet, 3 of the clock has the hour hand still showing at the quarter mark. So there isn't a tick for 1 or 2 o'clock? That's odd. We'll have to write this one off as artistic license. As a note, our dividing an hour up into 60 minutes goes *way* back, to the Sumerians of 2,000 B.C. at least. Measuring time by divisions based on multiple of 12 may be due originally to the lunar cycles, but nobody knows for sure because the practice started far before translatable documentation.
     
    Again with the argyle socks, but with the argyle pattern like a symbol instead of a complete patter over the entire sock.
     
    And they know about elephants, given Cheese Sandwich's slippers.
     
    The animators seem to have reached the 'Give no Bucks' stage, live action and puppetry? What?
     
    Party Howitzer! I want one.
     
    And Pinkie speaks Spanish. Why does that not surprise me? What she's singing is a traditional song for the piñata game.
     
    Why is the bread gray? They've done that several times in the past in that they actually *expect* certain baked goods to be gray. Is it supposed to represent dark breads, but dark brown didn't work?
     
    Why does Rarity have wings....? You'd think the file containing the Rarity puppet wouldn't have the wing models anymore just to prevent this kind of mistake.
     
    And the next rainbow trigger item. These are coming rather fast and furious now. At this rate each of the Mane 6 is going to have one long before the season finale.
  21. Fhaolan

    Bats!

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Bats! (December 28th 2013, 22 minutes)
     
    Summary: We can't stop here, it's bat country! Sweet Apple Acres is infested with uncontrollable vampire fruit bats.
     
    Apple Bucking Day? This is odd in several ways. One, AJ is seen bucking apples pretty much every day (which is weird actually). Two, I thought it was Apple Bucking Season, not Day. Three, under normal circumstances apples don't all go ripe at the exact same time on the exact same day. Different cultivars will become ripe at different times, and within the same cultivar they will become ripe over several weeks (which is why it's 'Season', not Day). This sounds more like an milestone day, something set on the calendar as a semi-festival or the like.
     
    I believe this is the first time we've seen the Sweet Apple Acres bell being used. Interesting that the farm even has such a thing. Given the number of emergencies Ponyville seems to undergo normally, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are alarm stations set up at various outlying farms and watchtowers as part of an alert system.
     
    Differentiating between Fruit Bats, and Vampire Fruit Bats. Given that they're still 'Fruit Bats', they're not similar to vampire bats as defined in our world. AJ is still talking about them as being fruit bats, but they appear larger and more rapacious.
     
    They are also sufficiently different from regular fruit bats that their 'language' is different.
     
    Actually, no. The way fruit bats help is by increasing the distribution of seeds, which is something orchard farmers *don't* want. Having apple trees grow three fields over where the farmer hasn't planted them is not helpful. They don't make trees grow faster or stronger unless there's something magical about 'vampire' fruit bats that produces this effect. Also fruit bats help in pollination, as many go after flower nectar the same way several birds (like humming birds) do.
     
    And they shouldn't be damaging the trees themselves, just the fruit.
     
    Which they already did. The West Orchard is for the fruit bats. Simply building a 'sanctuary' won't help unless you can talk to them to tell them to not go elsewhere. Which you've already proved you can't do yet. And if you could, why do they need *another* sanctuary when the West Orchard is already designated for them? Unless vampire fruit bats and regular fruit bats cannot occupy the same region.
     
    The last time the vampire fruit bats were around was when Granny was young. So this is an infrequent path they take. Which likely means they normally 'flock' pretty far away, but something else causes them to change paths. Basically something has happened to their normal food source. As much as I sympathize with AJ, I'd be concerned that there's something more insidious on it's way like a crop disease of some sort. Bats often carry diseases and the like, but once something is infected, the diseases stick around after the bats have left.
     
    Oh, lord. Twilight. The last time you did this, to the parasprites, it went badly wrong.
     
    Where did Rarity get the full containment hazmat suit? That's a bit odd in this setting. Useful, but odd.
     
    These trees have not just lost fruit, but leaves as well, and are appearing sick. I'm really getting the impression that the bats are just the surface issue, not the real danger.
     
    One day later, the trees are all repaired? Weird.
     
    What exactly are the bats eating them? Last time Twilight did this trick, the target creatures simply switched to something even worse.
     
    Twilight used the phrase 'stakeout', which most people associate with police hiding and watching a building in secret in the hopes of catching a criminal. That's the nice version. The original stakeout was an interrogation technique, where you tie a person to stakes driven into the ground and leave them out in the weather for an extended period of time. I'm assuming Twilight's using it in the more modern sense.
     
    Pinkie's entire mane is prehensile. The other ponies occasionally use their tails that way (especially AJ), but Pinkie seems to have far more control than any of the other ponies. Perhaps that's an Earth Pony trait, and Pinkie's just better at it than normal.
     
    Okay, Fluttershy's wings have gone batty, and she's using her tail prehensile.
     
    What? 80's computer graphics? The heck?
     
    Fluttershy is continuing to transform. She has not yet gained the slit pupils that the batponies in Luna Eclipsed had, but it's possible that she would get them eventually. Or if she had foals in this state, those foals may be batponies. Mind you, bats don't have slit pupils, so it's still more likely that batponies are actually 'dragonponies' intead.
     
    Unfortunately, the sanctuary is only working because Fluttershy likely learned the vampire fruit bat language due to her experiences. So it's not really indicative of the validity of her original argument.
  22. Fhaolan

    Neigh Anything

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Neigh Anything (Comic Issues 11-12, September 24th, Octover 30th 2013)
     
    Summary: The story of how Shining Armor and Cadance met, from their own perspectives. Sort of. Maybe. Accuracy of flashbacks not guaranteed. Definitely.
     
    Issue 11
     
    We're at Tealove's Tea Room, in Canterlot. Tealove is one of the ponies Big Mac got shipped with last arc, wandering around Ponyville. Canterlot is close enough to Ponyville that you can see Canterlot castle distinctly from the village, so it appears there is a *lot* of traffic between the two locations.
     
    And we have a temporal placement, this is taking place *before* the previous arc as the Summer Wrap-up Festival hasn't started yet. So the Canterlot Wedding episode took place at the end of Summer, near when this Summer Wrap-up Festival takes place, as they're talking about an anniversary party.
     
    Ah, so here is a High School equivalent. Canterlot Academy.
     
    It appears Shining Armor is a musician, as he's got books on composition and Flugelhorn music, plus they have an ROTC program (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) for the Canterlot Royal Guard. This seems to be indicating that the Royal Guard is considered a branch of the Equestrian Armed Forces, not the entirety. So I wonder what the other branches are? There will be an Army-equivalent, the Wonderbolts would be the elite from the Air Force equivalent. Does Equestria have a Navy? They have airships, would that be part of the Air Force, or a separate branch like the Coast Guard? Hrmmmm....
     
    In the basement, drinking Honey Dew, playing Oublietes and Ogres. Hrmmm. I wonder what they're parodying...
     
    An old-fashioned wringer washer. Believe or not, you can still get new ones of those. Home Queen makes them in Saudi Arabia, specifically for areas that don't have enough water pressure to run a modern washing machine. They're very popular for small farms that are barely on the grid.
     
    Heh, lampshading. Poindexter pointing out there are a lot of festivals and galas in this world.
     
    Gaffer is interesting, in that he has a two-tone coat. The word gaffer has a lot of different meanings, so it's hard to tell why he's named that. In England 'gaffer' is a generic term for boss or old man. It also be an electrician, a glassblower, a part of a sailboat... so many options.
     
    Yep, Shining Armor plays the Flugelhorn.
     
    Okay, this is a shame, but I can work with it. In the background there are writer awards on the wall, and a reference to Daring Do. However, events in the series (which I haven't reached yet on this blog) specifically say that Daring Do has a different author. Luckily, the award for Daring Do is not the same award as the writing award. It's two different plaques. Twilight's mom was an award-winning writer, but the award for Daring Do is something different. She's moved on in her career and become a *publisher*.
     
    This is a horrible idea. I love it.
     
    Zacherle Stadium. Nice. Bonnie Zacherle was the *original* original creator of My Little Pony, called 'My Pretty Pony', who sold the IP to Hasbro so many, many years ago.
     
    An electric keyboard? Specifically a double keyboard? That's pretty bold shifting of technology forward.
     
    No, I'm wrong. It's the ketar that does that. Keytars have been around since the 70's, but that's specifically a Yamaha SHS-10 from 1987. It's not even derived from it, it's that exact model. Keytars were popular with Glam Rock bands which brings us to:
     
    Oh, the costumes. We've got Devo, Boy George, Gaffer seems to be doing Men at Work, and Shining is *rocking* an Adam Ant outfit. That and they're doing a rewritten Oingo Boingo song that would get you arrested if you tried to do it straight now-a-days.
     
    Playing Polo. Polo was originally a game developed as a training exercise for cavalry.
     
    There is apparently another Academy in Manehattan. Interesting that they seem to consistently use the term 'Academy' rather than high or secondary school. Traditionally, 'Academy' in a non-military context means an dissenting school, one that is run independent of the state/national government's education system. For those in the US, it's basically like the charter school system.
     
    The letter jacket tradition. Kind of daft really, but I can't say I don't have one stored away from my high school... You know, I cannot even remember what I got the letter in? The only sports I did weren't through the school. I did heavy eventing at the Highland Games. Caber toss, hammer throw, that kind of thing. So what the heck *did* I do to get the letter? Huh. The 80's were a bit of a blur for me.
     
    Issue 12
     
    I do have to say, I love this version of the Shining Armor/Cadance/Twilight dynamic. These characters may be silly, but they actually have depth here rather than the cardboard cutouts we seem to be getting in the main series.
     
    Wide ruled paper has 11/32 inch spacing between the lines. Academy ruled is likely College ruled, which is 9/32 inch spacing. There is also a Narrow ruled which is 8/32 inch.
     
    My Tiny Gecko! They *need* to make this a thing.
     
    And the Sunshine, Sunshine rhyme, but a version that sounds so much more like schoolyard stuff.
     
    Okay, that architecture is... unique. It looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would design.
     
    Oh lord, Wyld Stallions poster.
     
    Standard 80's formal outfits. Nothing spectacula.... oh my. Mayor Mare as a goth lolita. That's hilarious.
     
    I'm skipping a lot of these references, because they're coming a bit thick and fast.
     
    Steeplechase team. Yeah, that would definitely be a valid sport for ponies.
     
    Buck's father is a congresspony. They have a Congress? Interesting.
     
    And finally, more star trek references, and a Quantum Leap one.
     
    Oubliettes & Ogres
     
    A couple of bonus comics again. These tend to be a bit of fun, so let's see.
     
    Heh, they're using a crown royal bag for their dice. Classic.
     
    Kale Crispies nacho flavored. Ah.
     
    Poindexter's elf-pegasis is a lawful evil bard named Lejandar Gygax. Ooookay, then.
     
    And of course Twilight would normally be part of this group, playing a... sorcerer? Okay, they're using 3rd edition rules then, which is odd given this is supposed to be an 80's equivalent.
     
    PTV
     
    Bunches of ponified 80's references. Not much else here. Most of you are probably aware of how big MTV was in the 80's, and that it changed significantly at some point and the Internet basically ate it's lunch.
     
    However, we now can talk about being Rein-rolled.
  23. Fhaolan
    See * for disclaimer
     
    Another first, let's see what's in the comics this time. Just to summarize this; due to the nature of the comics this appears to be more a listing of pop-cultural references than anything else. There is actual worldbuilding going on, but it's buried under so many in-jokes that it's a bit distracting. So many references from the 80's that it's more indicative of the writer's backgrounds than anything. However, let's take a shot at this.
     
    The Return of Queen Chrysalis (Comic Issues 1-4, November 28th 2012, January 2nd, January 30th, March 6th 2013)
     
    Summary: The changelings are back, and this time they have a plan! Not a sensible plan, but what do you want? Competence?
     
    Issue 1
     
    Yep, Hippology. Because 'Hippos' is Greek for horse. 'Potamos' means river, so Hippopotamus = River Horse. Greeks seem to have had strange ideas as to what a horse is.
     
    Wide range of animals here, lions, hippos, bears, koalas, flamingos.
     
    Big splash page with so many pop-culture references and callbacks to prior episodes, I'm not even going to try to find them all. We've got the Blues Brothers, Magnum P.I., My Name is Earl, plus several OCs for the writers and illustrators themselves.
     
    It does appear that Mayor is an elected position, as there's a gonfalon (that's what that kind of banner is called) calling for Mayor Mare to be re-elected.
     
    And we have reference to the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' film (1956), with the pointing and wailing.
     
    Twilight is referring to the replaced ponies as being 'Infected'. This seems a bit of a misnomer to me, as previously there were two known vectors for the changelings. Mind control, like Shining Armor and the bridesmaids, and duplication like Cadence. Personally, I'd make some differentiation between them. It appears Twilight doesn't think that way.
     
    Cute book titles 'You Idiot', 'To Serve Ponies', 'Herding Cats', 'IDW', and especially 'Wonder of Santa Mira' which is the fictional town in California in The Body Snatchers, the 1955 novel the film was based on. Plus a bunch of others including Airwolf (1984 TV series).
     
    Heh, Celestia has an answering service for Spike's Dragon Breath letters. Cute.
     
    Pretending to be a zombie... straight from Shaun of the Dead (2004 film)
     
    Yeah, they're really pushing this as being a blending of the Body Snatchers, and Aliens.
     
    The changelings in this seem to have castes or ranks, as some have armor with most do not.
     
    And now we have Spike's Dragon Breath postal service able to transport something other than paper. And somehow Crysalis can send items through this, so it's not just connected to Celestia.
     
    Ah, some worldbuilding. We have the 'Secretariat Comet' passing through the Horse Head Nebula. Secretariat was the name of a famous racehorse from the 70's, and was ranked the most important Thoroughbred of all time as he pretty much won *everything* it was possible for a racehorse to win. And the Horsehead Nebula is a real thing about 1,500 light years from here in the constellation of Orion. Of course a comet passing through this Nebula would be so far away that it wouldn't be visible, unless they're using the Astrological version of 'passing through' which means the comet is visibly passing in front of the Nebula relative to Equestria. Astrology doesn't deal with relative distances at all, so as far as they're concerned a comet is a special kind of star and all stars are the same distance from the world. This conjunction is extremely rare according to Twilight, and is the biggest thing for 3,000 years. That doesn't mean the conjunction happens every 3,000 years, just that something as, or more, important happened 3,000 years ago. I wonder what? When the conjunction occurs, all magic gets boosted temporarily.
     
    Issue 2
     
    An extension on the official map. Below the Macintosh Hills there are the Appaloosan Mountains, the forest of Leota, and the Changeling Kingdom.
     
    Appaloosa is a horse breed from the Palouse River region of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. I have no idea about Leota, but it has to be a reference to *something*.
     
    The mine they're passing through to bypass the mountain used to belong to the Diamond Dogs. Diamond Dogs was the last glam rock album from David Bowie back in 1974. It looks like we're going to be mining that reference a lot. ha. Ziggy and Stardust as the names of the two guardian statues will be the first.
     
    Heh, they've got a cave troll. With an Optimus Prime toy made of rocks and twigs. And naming a pet George, from Looney Tunes (which is an older reference to 'Of Mice and Men', but that's even more obscure.)
     
    Another David Bowie reference, a statue made up like Aladdin Sane (1973 album)
     
    And another, with a sign saying the sashay on the boardwalk. (Lyric from Diamond Dogs)
     
    And these would be the Spiders from Mars from 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars', the full name of the 1972 album from David Bowie. Technically the Spiders from Mars was the name of Bowie's backing band at the time. I don't know the band well enough to guess which one is supposed to be which spider.
     
    More Bowie references with a sign about red burning like a jungle bright, from Cat People.
     
    Twilight's magic doesn't appear to make very good direct attacks in this case. The impact of the blast is just enough to annoy the big spider. Mind you, it out-masses the changelings she was blasting about previously by one heck of a lot, so that's not surprising really.
     
    And we finally get to leave Bowie behind with some lyrics from Golden Years.
     
    I've played Bocce Ball on occasion. The dog keeps stealing the target ball.
     
    And a full map for below the Appaloosan Mountains. Many different references here, but ones to pick out are references to Keplies (a faerie horse that drowns its victims), Elephants, a region known as the Battle of Discord, and what looks like a Preserver monument from Star Trek. Otherwise, it's easier to just snaffle the map in it's entirety. Ah heck, an Oubliette and a Froud reference. We're back to David Bowie again, this time for Labyrinth
     
    (1986 film).
     
    Issue 3
     
    So the somewhere there was a town populated by little cat creatures. Wuvy-Dovey Smoochy Land? Really? Fine. The changelings converted it to their own kingdom.
     
    More Star Trek.
     
    Yikes. I get the feeling this is a GIR reference from Invader ZIM, but I could easily be wrong. Either that, or Pinkie is a fursuiter... which I remember her doing before once, so...
     
    Uhm. This comic is pretty dark in places. Odd.
     
    Chekhov's Oubliette...
     
    Chupacabra, a mythical creature from the southern United States and Mexico. Descriptions range from a humanoid lizard-creature to what is basically a hairless dog. Corpses of the cryptid that have been examined are so far all of coyote/dog/wolf hybrids with the mange or that genetic glitch that causes hairlessness as per the Xoloitzcuintle (the mexican hairless dog).
     
    Huh, aggressive giant flowers. A callback to Fugitive Flowers from G1? These ones fly. I don't remember those ones flying. I'm probably missing a reference.
     
    Jackalopes. Another North American cryptid. The name is relatively recent (1932), but the stories of a rabbit with antlers or horns go back hundreds of years all over the world. They just have different names, like the Al-mi'raj and the Lepus cornutus. Unfortunately, there is a real virus that causes cancerous growths on rabbit's heads that could be mistaken for antlers.
     
    It's apparently fall, given the color of the trees. Either that or we're dealing with red-leafed trees like the Imperial Maple.
     
    The jackalope and the chupacabra don't like each other much.
     
    Issue 4
     
    The castle there is a lovely example of 19th century Romance Revival architecture, very much like Neuschawanstein Castle in Bavaria.
     
    Escher drawing. Though the bouncing ball puts it back to Labyrinth again.
     
    A bunch of movie villains, including Mola Ram (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984), Pennywise (It, book 1986, tv miniseries 1990), the Phantom (Phantom of the Opera, 1925 version with Lon Chaney specifically), the Twins (Shining, 1980), and the zombie in the cellar from Evil Dead II (1987).
     
    Many an answer has been postulated for Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter riddle, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" However, Mr. Carroll himself said that he never intended there to be an answer, that was the joke. After awhile, he created an answer because he was fed up with being asked. "Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" The spelling of nevar being very specific, being raven backwards.
     
    The changelings are very weird in this comic, to be honest. It seems that the changelings have a need to be generally irritating. Maybe this whole thing is some kind of tenderizing process? Does that map to what the changelings were doing when they were terrorizing Canterlot?
     
    However, one thing we can take away is that the changelings do have individual appearances. Same color scheme all the time, but build and size can be quite different.
     
    1960's Batman typography.
     
    The comet is causing magical surges, and Twilight's blast has been upgraded. However, it doesn't appear to damage living things still, it's primarily damaging stone, glass, cloth. Interesting.
     
    Chrysalis is doing her hair up while looking at a mirror... I've seen that before, but I'm not remembering where.
     
    And a quick Bride of Frankenstein hairdo.
     
    I want to know more about what happened to Spike. That sounds fascinating.
     
    And a giant marshmallow pony attacking Manehattan, straight out of Ghostbusters (1984).
     
    How Much IS That Pony In The Window
     
    A couple of bonus comics. Here we have Pinkie dressed up in an Edwardian tall lace collar with a tiny top hat. For some reason this kind of thing gets labeled as Steampunk, but it's not actually Victorian which is where Steampunk is supposed to be in, but the next period.
     
    Ice cream... wagon. Not a self-powered vehicle, but a pony-pulled wagon.
     
    In The Interim
     
    Ah good, we get to find out what was going on with Spike.
     
    Giant cockatrices, simply big versions of the regular-sized one we've seen in the show. However, these don't seem to have the petrifying gaze.
     
    Celestia and Spike appear to have a bond of their own here.
     
    And Celestia, Spike, the Guard, and a bunch of regular ponies all pony-up and take care of the issue. Good job, but it does demonstrate that Celestia may be powerful relative to other ponies, she's not a goddess. Her magic should be boosted by this comet as well, and she still needs all that assistance to deal with the giant cockatrices.
  24. Fhaolan

    Spike at Your Service

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Spike at Your Service (December 29th 2012, 22 minutes)
     
    Summary: Applejack saves Spikes life, and gets some unfortunate consequences.
     
    That's not really that many books. Back when I was in University, that kind of workload was expected.
     
    The Everfree Forest, dark and dangerous, again. It seems to fluctuate.
     
    Ah, timberwolves. These really strike me as Discord's sense of humor. "So you ponies like to eat plants, do you? How about a bit of quid pro quo?"
     
    Rather delicate, as well. They break apart a bit too easily. But they do reassemble themselves with some sort of magic aura. Still sounds like Discord magic, or something similar.
     
    Given that Spike normally does the cooking and whatnot, his general incompetence is baffling.
     
    Ah, this isn't just 'Dragon Code' but 'Spike the Dragon Code', he calls it out specifically. So this *is* something he's made up, probably based on some stories he's read.
     
    Plus, he can store stuff in his dragon fire. Interesting.
     
    Given the likely lifespan of dragons, this really would be forever as far as Applejack is concerned.
     
    What exactly did he do to get it gray like that?
     
    RD is a fanfic writer. And it sounds like she's a fairly typical fanfic writer as well.
     
    Twilight... seems to have convinced herself of the reality of this Dragon Code. She must have been reading the same stories.
     
    RD is good at imitating a timberwolf.
     
    Not only do they re-assemble, they can re-assemble into a single giant timberwolf.
     
    Way too delicate.
  25. Fhaolan

    Apple Family Reunion

    By Fhaolan,

    See * for disclaimer
     
    Apple Family Reunion (December 22nd 2012, 22 minutes)
     
    Summary: Applejack tries to organize the best Family Reunion ever.
     
    100 moons since the last family reunion. Okay, the first episode was specifically called out as an Apple Family Reunion. So if 1 moon = 1 month (which is what 'month' literally means), then it's been about 8 1/3 years since the first episode. If however 1 moon = 1 week (the time from one Moon Day/Monday to another) then it's been not quite two years since the first episode. Given that it has in fact been two years in broadcast time, I'm going to have to give this one to 1 moon = 1 week.
     
    Here's the list of places Apple Bloom mentions 'Yonder Hill', 'Hollow Shades', 'Galloping Gorge', 'Old Mountain', 'Phillidephia','Tall Tail Town', 'Appeloosa', 'Manehattan'. Some of those are on the official map, but several aren't.
     
    Indication that pony names change occasionally as Apple Sauce was originally called something else. It is implied that the pony themselves don't get to pick their name, it's what everyone else decides to call you. This is very similar to the Celtic naming conventions, where your name is basically what modern people would consider a nickname. Your real name is a secret known only to you and the priest who performed the divination to discover it.
     
    The way Applejack is ... surprised ... by the list of events at the family reunion, it seems to indicate that last time she was too young to remember everything that goes on in one. Which means that first family reunion in the first episode was somehow different, and didn't 'count'. Which resets the 1 moon = 1 month again.
     
    The way this is framed, that other building in the background with the carrot on top is presented as part of Sweet Apple Acres. It's a strange little building, with the roof done as a half-barrel. Barrel roofs were never common, but they did exist and go back as far as Ancient Egypt. So is that a separate farm for the Carrot family, are the Apples subletting some of their land? The house is lit from within, so it's a going concern not an abandoned house.
     
    Again, another indication that lightning is not considered that dangerous, but more a prank. The lightning generated by these little clouds the pegasi push around must have minimal power compared to natural lightning.
     
    Covered wagons, stagecoaches, and a basic airship. We've seen airships before, but they seem much more common in this world than in our own. Also the amount of lift provided by the gasbag seems much higher in Equestria. One of the reasons why airships never really 'took off' was that the sheer size of the vessel's gasbag compared to the cargo capacity of the gondola is pretty abysmal. Add in the difficulty of controlling direction of travel, and as cool as they look, they're simply not efficient.
     
    A lot of these Apples aren't. We've got Carrots, Turnips, etc. So far, they all look like Earth Ponies, but I know that changes later.
     
    Granny refers to Apple Sauce as 'Aunty Apple Sauce'. This might mean that Apple Sauce is even older than Granny, which given the way they interact isn't that surprising. Granny and Apple Rose are behaving as if they are younger of the set.
     
    Gas powered sewing machines. Yes, these existed. I'm aware of the National Sewing Machine company building industrial sewing machines driven by 'Duro' Stover engines. These things were huge, and exceptionally dangerous.
     
    Definitely Minnesotan accents there.
     
    Nope, Applejack is now on the balcony of that odd little house. I'm really not sure what's going on there. Is that storage for carrots? If so, why was it lit the other night? Oh! Maybe it's Big Mac's stallion-cave equivalent. Somewhere he can go to get away from all the mares.
     
    The West Orchard has been let fallow when it was infested with fruit bats. Which are colorful bats with the basic appearance of actual fruit. Raspberries, of various colors, to be precise. An odd camouflage adaption, but I've seen worse.
     
    Okay, here we spot some pegasi and I think I see one unicorn there. They're not in the final 'Family Photo', so they're likely ponies who have married into the family, or are currently 'stepping out' with a family member. Like Flitter.
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