Fhaolan

Yeah, this is something that I was aware of when I was an admin here. Sometimes a tech pone has to jiggle something in the back end to get an email address change to go through. he process used to be to send an email to support@mlpforums.com, or go through the Support ticket menu above, and explain there what's going on. It'll get to one of the tech pones and they'll take it from there.

Colin also had the problem that the production team was constantly infighting as well. The script editor and the producer resented each other's existence, that kind of thing. And I liked Steven Moffat's individual episodes when he was one of many writers, I just don't think it clicked when that got stretched out over entire seasons. But I'm also not going to lay it all down at his feet, there were a lot of other people involved that likely didn't quite click as well. It takes the whole crew to get it right, in my mind.

Right. Watched it. Well done. Has a more classic feel to it, which is good in my mind. I've not been happy with what the writers did to Capaldi's run, as a lot of it felt forced. Sort of like what happened to Colin Baker's run. Nothing wrong with the actors in either case, it just felt like the writers and directors were interested in doing something else, and didn't want to be there. I was more aware of the background 'music' in it, than I had been in the last couple of years. That also reminded me of the classic series, where the background was there to reinforce the mood rather than point out which character was talking at the time. I can see the companion for myself, I don't need 'Rose's Theme', 'Donna's Theme', 'Amy's Theme', 'Clara's Theme', and so on. Composers spending too much time doing character themes and not enough stuff for the episodes themselves. Yeah, I'm thinking the complete changeover of cast and crew was good for this.

I've got two versions of it recorded to watch, as soon as my wife has time to watch it together. I'm not overly clear on what the two versions are, or if they're in any way different, but they were advertised as 'the regular one' and 'the special one' on the DVR listings. It may be the 'special one' is just the current version of the 'making of' show they used to do a few years back.

I had to sit down and count it up. I've lived in 19 different places ranging from Ontario, Canada to Washington State, USA.

A mandolin. Not the musical instrument (Dad has that, I don't), but the kitchen utensil used to thin-slice stuff. It was for making cucumber sandwiches for @Jeric at BABSCon one year.

The polls on the front page are something of a new feature, so there's bound to be growing pains with it. I would suggest that looking at ways to give more context in the poll itself might be valuable, given that this one seems to have confused a number of people.

Oh yes, Evil sticks to things. A mix of ketchup and club soda will clean it right up, providing you haven't let it sit too long. Evil stains, you see.

As much as I feel for Zecora, I have to go with Fleur de Lis. I just have to.

With regards to the animation quality, the first couple of films (Midnight Castle, Catrina, and then the 'Movie' [with the Smooze]) were above average for the time, as the first two were TV movies rather than TV series, so they cost considerably more to make. That first MLP Movie was actually a proper theatre movie. That plus the Transformers Movie (and a GI Joe Movie that got diverted into a direct-to-video release) almost broke Hasbro as a company due to cost overruns and poor returns. The first series proper (My Little Pony 'n Friends) was about normal for TV animation quality. All of which was done by the same animation studios as the original Transformers and GI Joe cartoons, which started as an animation studio for commercials and the like. So yeah, they're a bit stuttery as if they're on 15-20 frames per second rather than the standard 24, but that's not unusual for TV cartoons at the time. The next series (My Little Pony Tales) was a bit cheaper as Hasbro skipped the middleman (Marvel) and went directly to the animation studio to cut costs. It was a bit more in line with the lower-end Hanna Barbera stuff, which could get *really* cheap. The g3 animations (it wasn't really a series) was weird, animation-quality-wise. They spent time making sure every lock of mane wibbled around independently at first, and yet in the third... episode? kinda... random characters had dark black outlines that made them seem like they were drawn in a different art-style. I'm not sure what was going on there. It seemed to settle down in their fourth outing (A Very Minty Christmas), but the copy I have (VCR recorded from TV at the time) still had that low framerate issue. I don't know if the commercial copies are like that. g3.5 the animation quality control shot up. The character designs were consistent, the animation quality was better, etc. I'm just not fond of the bobble-head artstyle personally. I honestly think the G4 character designs are still too head-heavy myself, but they're not quite as blatant as the g3.5 models. The g3.75 or whatever that spawned the Newborn Cuties was a disaster, animation and art-wise, and that's all I need to say about that.

So, Fleur popped in and insisted on a dancing dress, as she's fed up with being saddled (ha!) with some stately gown for the Gala. Which to me means something like a 1920's flapper outfit, with lots of light flowing layers and trim while still technically being minimalist in cut as they really are just a series of shorter tapered tube dresses stitched together with no belting. If they bother to have any actual tailoring it will be around the bust, which is kinda irrelevant on a pony. The colors here are just to differentiate it from the ponequinn are not meant to be taken seriously as they should vary depending on who exactly the dress is made for. Mainly silk, with either silver slivers or crystal shards for trim, just for the glitter. I decided to pin up one side for an asymmetric look as well as using the trim for a peek-a-boo with the cutie-mark. Again, depending on the exact subject for the dress, that pin-up might be higher or lower, just so the trim covers the cutie-mark, revealing only when dancing. The silk *could* be embroidered to add a bit of texture, as that is something of a standard for the flapper style, but that will likely cut down on the shine, which I think would be a bit of a loss. Yes, I put too much thought into this. Fleur insisted.

Fluer! Fleur! Fleur!

That's actually a common problem in 'real' mythology. These magic artifacts running around with mysterious origins... that you would have known about if you just happened to know this *other* story that is much, much older and where the artifact had a different name, or description, or something. (For example: Perseus' Helm of Invisibility, which he got from Athena, who got it from Hermes, who stole it from Hades... and probably made by Hephaestus? since *everything* was made by Hephaestus supposedly... and could be a military helm, or a hat, or even just a headcloth, depending on the particular story.) Given the naming convention 'Rainbow of Darkness'/'Rainbow of Light'... I always assumed it was a two-sided coin issue. If something created the Rainbow of Light, the Rainbow of Darkness was either a byproduct or spontaneously manifested due to balance. It ending up in Tirek's hands because evil tends to clump together or something. Like cat litter.

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.

There were a couple of things that really amused me (for instance, not that long ago there was a Brony meme around ponies in socks, and here was Minty singing about how great socks are back in the 90's. )

Oh, oh poor @Passion. What ever possessed you to go back into the fray? Silly Khajiit. You just like punishment, don't ya?