Senko

Dont forget in an earlier episode the crusaders crash a funeral and Sweetie stands on some poor ponies coffin while saying the speaker's too old for Cherilee.

Perhaps there does seem to be a lot of dark magic in Equestria. It's all sunshine, cute fuzzy ponies and friendship till you start looking closely then you see the cockatrices, villains like Tirek or flyders. Look even deeper and you get things like the personality switching pool of evil, plants that reproduce via swamp fever or villains like Sombra. As I've said before Equestria is a candy coated deathworld with a lot of dark things left unexplored even by the end of the show.

All the mane 6 have some mental problems but Twilight and Pinkie seem the most vulnerable as least by their reactions when something hit that button. Twilight and her fear of failing Celestia driving her into making a friendship problem or Pinkie as you said feeling abandoned by her friends talking to inanimate objects. The others all have issues that have been triggered by one thing or another but they haven't lost themselves that badly because of it.

Poor Pinkie was not happy with being limited to buying a gift for one pony.

I have to rewatch this episode for spitfire because it just occured to me the Apple sisters are wearing clothing from family members who have passed away so maybe Dash's new hairstyle is her way of remembering a mentor who has also died in the time skip. Spitfire didn't really have a clothing item she wore apart from her uniform so Dash went with her hairstyle instead.

Curse you and your pictures it was like a tour walking through the streets of your childhood and seeing those you knew as children and young adults have grown older and have moved on becoming the older generation it brought tears to my eyes again.

I assume you don't count the background ones like the traffic control Alicorn. Thought I do like the idea you've given me of Twilight radiating Alicorn ray's that will eventually make the other mane 6 into ones.

As I've said before in the Twilight/Starlight fight Twilight uses several times the magic Starlight does (if you count up all the spells and compare their fighting) and they both tire out at the same time. In raw power Twilight wins whereas Starlight is better at fighting.

I'll miss your reviews.

Of course if you go with the muscle analogy it may not atrophy and thus a more powerful pony drained/gifting will need longer than one who has little magic to recover.

I just get the feeling she's happier as the headmistress of the school of friendship living in small Ponyville than she is as the isolated ruler of Equestria in Canterlot. In Ponyville she had friends, in Canterlot she has subjects. Her big brother is living somewhere else, her parents seem the sort to travel and will eventually pass on. Even her mentor Celestia is gone from Canterlot all she has left is Spike and he's starting to grow away from her too. Think how much it hurt to miss the events of her 3 day weekend and now expand it out to a moon, hearing second hand of Granny Smiths passing and Applejack having to deal with that, of the crusaders graduating, of Rarity opening a boutique in yakyakistan rather than being part of it like she was at Manehattan.

Hmmm interesting concepts I admit I lean towards magic is genetic so the idea it can all be taken and never recover just sits wrong with me. Starlight's comments certainly support that and I'd be personally happier as I said if it did regenerate after being given/taken admitedly we don't see long term after Tirek's or Cozy's attack if it would recover in time. Of course it gets weirder with the animals like Cebererus being able to give up the magic that lets them be what they are turning them into multiple animals.

I get the feeling they were around we see them fishing and the like in the background on occasion its just they spend a lot of time travelling so Rarity is normally the one looking after her sister. As evidenced by the fact at her cutecenera one of the most important celebrations in a Ponies life her parents like Scootaloo's were absent.

The thing about this is if you include other media as canon (so long as they don't conflict we have had out of show events referenced in the show afterall) then it seems Celestia has been trying since Sombra's time to raise/prepare another Alicorn princess (Hope, Sunset, Who know's how many others over the millenia between) its just that with Twilight everything went right for her to finally ascend and become one. Cadence is on the other hand a wild Alicorn created by her own actions completely without Celestia's involvement so the two of them both cropping up at the same time could genuinely be coincidence. Alternatively we know Harmony and the tree have influenced events in the past (Rainbow's rainboom effectively linking all 6 with their cutiemarks years before they met) so something may have been working to create new Alicorns in preperaration for the troubled years to come. Personally I feel Alicorns are effectively immortal (unless the showwriters show me Twilight's grave) and my personal inclindation is that their has to be some other appearance factor in play. I know the animators gave us Celestia Twilight (and dislike it) but I just feel that needs to be ignored because if Twiligth grew to that in such a short time then Luna should have grown to look like Celestia a long time before the end of the run rather than her consistent post nightmare-moon look or Cadence looking like that as well.

We need a Rosetta stone equivilent.