Compeador

as long as there're no bug problem, I'd say its marvelous, just look at how big her personal swim pool is

so they officially begin to ship maud X starlight and maud even helped the badass starlight to enslave the town...what the heck is this

well, another slice of life episode, despite flurry seems too OP, its pretty good (also lesson) for those who have little kids. Many parents are too busy to look after or exhausted to their children and just left them a 3C product, and leave the kid alone...

definitely not this time, she's still lack of character development, or being poor handled, she should stay as support or background character

Definitely not true, I believe most of us have been done enough IRL, and searching for a safe haven here in MLP(fandom). I gotta say it's really exhausting when we(or, at least me) fully armed to against tons of potential threats, annoying "relationships" and responsibilities in our real life, the Las Pegasus episode may have shown a bit of it. anyway, over here, in MLP, at least you don't have to worry too much about the idiot evil human stuffs

I guess the staff is just borrow some archetypes from the fantasy (western) dragons, you probably heard some dragons will eat some minerals as food, like gemstones, golds(mostly)... the codex I known for this explanation is from the famous D&D series, one of WotC(also belong to Ha$bro)'s publication called Draconomicon- Metallic Dragons, and here's the small part from the book: so I guess Spike works the similar logic that way, perhaps he also has the `powerful enzymes` to utilize the inorganics and produce the hormone that works like Dopamine, therefore he feels eating gems is very pleasant.

this post reminds me the south equestria map from the comic some how it'll be nice if they introduce us the Saddle Arabia, which seems located in the "San Palemine Desert" on the map above; and it might has the most orderly state organization besides Eqiestria in the canon

! what the staff thought after the Cutie Remark part 2 released :-P , making Starlight like an a**hole; regardless, she is my most-hated pony, best villain -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- my theory goes with you in the part of "how the equals sign does", suppressing the recipient's abilities and the victim is able to break that spell, but additionally, it also requires strong willpower to fight against the spell or he/she will probably become a walking corpse like most citizen in the starlight's village imo, the cutie mark is more than decoration, its kinda like a magic structure that has some functions we don't know, but it exactly does nothing to do about talent. Here's my theory how the "Cutie Mark Removal" works: first, Starlight uses two Arcane Focus(1): the Staff of sameness and the equals signs, the former can boost the spell's durability, and the function of latter just like you said, suppressing abilities. Caster fires the high-energy rays toward the recipient('s cutie marks/flanks), bombarding the particles between the cutie marks and the recipient, temporary block the (magic) connections between them(2), meanwhile, caster trying to remove the cutie mark on order to replace with the equals sign(means the equals sign cannot work if the cutie mark is still on the pony); the recipient is able to fight against the removal until he/she is run out of energy, during the confrontation, caster fires the rays and trying to remove the cutie mark continuously, it will also drain the caster's stamina. The success of this spell depends who exhausted first, if succeed, the caster MUST put the sign on the pony before her/his original cutie mark(s) be freed from the caster's control, and after the sign is put on, the caster also must seal the original cutie mark into a completely sealed and enchanted container or the cutie mark will fly back to its owner and breaks the spell automatically(2)(3). Notes: (1) Arcane Focus: An arcane focus is a special item — an orb, a crystal, a rod, a specially constructed staff, a wand-like length of wood, or some similar item — designed to channel the power of arcane spells. A sorcerer, warlock, or wizard can use such an item as a spellcasting focus. (5e SRD, pg 66-67) (2) In my theory, There's a interaction between the cutie mark and its owner, part like the interactions in Particle Physics, but the effective range is almost unbounded, the constituent elements of the bond is "Magic", briefly(the detail is based on my hypothesis: "Possible Principle of Magic", that is a chemical and physics-heavy stuff that i haven't fully complete yet due to my knowledge ). If you know the particle physics, it will be better understand, anyway, you need to temporary blocks the interactions so you can get rid of the cutie mark. And the reason for why the cutie mark need to be sealed in the vault/jar in clear here, because the unbounded interaction, this also explained why the cutie mark will automatically back to its owner after the vault was broken. (According to the Theory of Relativity, the mass is proportional to the velocity(F = γm0a) so we can see the speed of cutie mark back to its owner is limited, but the gamma is completely different...that's what I can do to explain the phenomenons in the show :awuh: ) EDIT: The magic bond could be found in Twilight's Kingdom, when Tirek drains out pony's magic, the pony's cutie mark disappears. (3) The enchantment on the container is something that can prevent cutie mark back to its owner, since the bond is magic based, spells like the globe of invulnerability(an anti-magic spell) or any spell works the same can be the enchantment You can say that again, in season 5 finals that our pony are time traveling, that really kills my braincell and i was yelling: "wtfwtfwtf....(loop)" :facehoof:

this is probably the best lesson learned from the episode and the explanation of when cute mark appears I see so far, I agree with almost of your points; however, based on this, it leads to another question: ``if cutie marks have nothing to do with talent, then why starlight's 'cutie mark removal' could enfeeble the recipient's talents?'' Starlight has been the most troublesome character that interrupts the logic since season 5... (I don't want to off topic so I will just ask instead going deep into this issue)