dekutree64

Everything went better than expected Ember looks like an annoying Spike shipping OC, but instead we get platonic friendship with her and plenty of shipping with Rarity One thing that bothers me.. why does the dragon lord say "dragons of Equestria"? I thought they lived far away in their own land where they don't have to submit to the friendly ways of colorful miniature horses. At least, not until now that the new dragon lord has been infected with pony friendship Discord, griffons, dragons... is there any uncontaminated species left at this point? But Spike bringing pony culture to the dragons was the dragon lord's fault for summoning him. Twilight did a good job of non-interference. I wish we'd gotten more time with Celestia and Luna at the start. Just a little bit of actual conversation beyond greetings, before they were interrupted. But at least they're around in a regular episode, unlike in season 4. Hmm, it would make a good future story if Garble uses friendship for evil. Spike's friendly attitude allowed him, a tiny baby dragon, to win against all the big ones. Up until he gave the scepter away, that could have been considered as just a very good strategy. And Garble just might have enough brains to realize that he could use it too.

Well I slept through the actual airing again, but have now watched it, and liked it a lot. A few minor quibbles: 1. Smarty Pants is most likely lost forever to Twilight? Sad. I hope that was just some other similar looking doll, and we see Smarty Pants somewhere around the apple farm again soon. 2. Bullying the cannon back from the shady stallion. It wasn't that bad since it was just a straight up return, no harm done. And at least Rarity didn't go all sexual on him like usual. But I wish they would have taken a more positive direction like maybe his pouch had a loose thread that Rarity could fix, or they could help him with some other problem as a quick apology for bothering him in the first place. 3. I was freaking out that Maud forgot to take Boulder out of the pouch before returning it. Apparently she did, since they never got back to that, but I wish it had been shown... unless next episode is planned to be a rescue mission for both Boulder and Smarty Pants. Those points aside, it was great to see Maud again. Her monotone voice isn't funny, but it is interesting. I love having her around as a regular character and not treated as a one trick pony. The swan boats are awesome. I wish there'd been time for them to ride one. Even better, see Pinkie attempt to ride a live swan first They're not the most friendly of creatures. I also kind of wish Pinkie had gotten yelled at for dumping confetti all over the city throughout the episode I assume it's biodegradable, so in a small un-paved town like Ponyville it's not really a problem. But in Manehattan, somepony's gonna have to clean that stuff up. Maud certainly does know what she can actually get some good use out of And in the end, the lesson was a good one, that gift giving shouldn't be a competition. And the implicit message that over-gifting is worse than under-gifting, because it makes the receiver feel guilty. Though the way it turned out, Maud didn't get anything at all... so it would have been nice if Pinkie spotted something good at the end. Maybe just a nice looking rock off the ground

Yeah, but it just doesn't feel fair the way Twilight gets special treatment because her friendships are more important than Starlight's was. And it would have been a great opportunity to add a new dimension to the world. Something that was missing all along but we never realized it.

No, the message would be to fight harder not to lose your friendships in the first place. Though thinking more into it, her high magic skill might mean that she really did devote herself fully to becoming worthy of joining him in Canterlot magic school, and still failed for some reason. Maybe he just turned out to be a jerk, making new friends and not being interested in her by the time she got there? In that case there really is nothing to do but move on with your wounded heart. But they should have shown it directly if that is what happened.

That ending was disappointing. What are they trying to tell her, just get over it? I thought they were going to fix her past so she was never separated from her best friend, and then we'd see how much better the world would be if that friendship hadn't been removed from it.

I screencapped that just so I could put some suggestive caption on it later

Dang, that war reality was dark. I wonder what became of Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis in that version?

Wikipedia says Josh Haber.

Sleepless in Ponyville is it Assuming that any lesbian ship, nomatter how innocent, is beyond the show's rating, then the next thing I'd most like to see is a day in the life of Princess Celestia.

Not quite, because we did start from scratch before, and look where it got us Yes we need to rework the foundation, but we need to rework it from here forward, not going backward and starting over. The internet allows us to be connected with eachother all over the world by real interaction rather than just in the spiritual sense. And as more emotional bonds are made across borders, war between countries becomes less and less tolerable for us as a whole. Not to mention it allows sharing of knowledge vastly more efficiently than by traditional education methods, especially in poor countries. I still have hope for the future, because many of the growing pains of an advanced society are already behind us. We're still in the tough transitional period, but the technology developed in the past 150 years is a big help toward making it possible for everyone to live comfortably, without needing a larger number of poor people to do the life-wasting busy work. And longer life expectancy on top of that is a very good thing. No longer do we need religion to explain away health problems. Instead, we can actually do something about them. Spirituality is a good thing, but now it can be done for the right reasons, and not as a coping mechanism for the bad parts of natural-style life. Another point is that you might think making everyone comfortable and healthy would lead to us breeding like mice until we overpopulate and become miserable again from resource starvation. But in reality, humans seem to operate in the opposite way. The more miserable we are, the more babies we have. Comfortable people tend to plan their lives better and maintain a more reasonable birth rate. I theorize that the current overpopulation problem is because so many of us are still suffering, not because we have too much technology.

Hmm, I'll have to rewatch this one with my expectations adjusted. I was so hyped that it sort of fell flat. I thought it was going to be the crusaders helping her, so it would ride the wave of feels from Crusaders of the Lost Mark, but instead it was Applejack, and though the songs were good, it just didn't get me going like CotLM did. It feels like it's out of balance... like the songs were meant to go with a more epic story than we got here. That manager was such a blatant jerk, it hardly felt like an accomplishment to get rid of him. Just something that should have happened long ago. And the Twilight Ex Machina video recording felt weird... like it shouldn't have been necessary, and Rara should have been suspicious that it was edited footage to sway her opinion, since the real event happened just seconds before and right nearby, so why would Applejack want her to watch a video rather than position her to see it happen live? Manager's reaction confirmed it as truth right away, but it still felt weird. Hopefully it will seem more exciting on second viewing. 1. What About Discord 2. Tanks for the Memories 3. The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows 4. Appleloosa's Most Wanted 5. Princess Spike

I loved it Feels more like season 1 than any episode in a long time. Just a fun little story and focus on two characters to solve it. All y'all saying it was dull, go back and watch some season 1 episodes. Remember our own roots, and why we came to love the show in the first place. It doesn't have to be all dramatic every time. It was great to see Twilight and Fluttershy paired off again. First time since A Bird in the Hoof! And with Twilight not being insane over trying to please Celestia, she was much more considerate toward Fluttershy this time. Their friendship feels very warm. The message was great as well, and very true of real war. Fighting just destroys the countries you're trying to protect. And the circular arguments that the families were giving when asked what they were hoping to accomplish were pretty realistic too There's just no reasoning with people when they're happy being angry. My favorite line was when Big Daddy was going on about cooking up the pumpkins, "actually that all sounds pretty good..." A while back I was reading about this giant gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav and was thinking along similar lines, that the bullets are so huge that it would almost be a good thing to get shot at with the non-explosive ones because you get so much free metal Twilight was pretty adorable all episode. About time she got some action. Last week's episode was depressing. It was fun to see her do a rendition of the Royal Canterlot Voice, and try to invent math to describe friendship. But once again, the 8 pointed stars puzzle me. Why did Twilight use one on the chalk board, rather than her own 6 pointed star cutie mark? Is she going to get her cutie mark upgraded to 8 points to match her castle? Or are the writers and/or animators just trying to torment me? Also, I loved the 300 reference. ...and those Hooffields and McColts are so inbred they make the Apples look genetically diverse

Yeah, the town was a dictatorship in communist clothing, which is the same reason most real life attempts at communism haven't worked out very well. One true attempt at communism in modern times was the hippies in America, but they failed due to the evils of drug addiction. I tend more toward the harmony concept rather than any specific ideology. Communism can be good, but even then it's not for everyone. There is great variety in humanity. People need to have the freedom to move around and find their like-minded group, rather than being stuck with whatever they're born into. And all the groups need to be allowed to exist, rather than certain ones crushing all the others. When the Europeans discovered the Americas, it was a grand opportunity to create a more harmonious world, but they totally blew it and wrecked everything. It should have been the alternative land for people who don't deal well with the "civilized" lifestyle. Let nature types move from Europe to America, and American natives who wanted something different move to Europe. But even with good intentions, the disease problem still decimated the native populations, so it may never have really worked. If only vaccines had been invented a few hundred years earlier. Eradication of smallpox really is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity. Invention of the internet is another, so at least that's something that resulted from the path that was taken. But so many great cultures and places have been destroyed along the way, and the natural lifestyle is mostly impossible now with all the viable land claimed by someone

In the sense that she has little idea what a princess of friendship is actually supposed to do on a daily basis, then yes, she is a horrible princess. But that's only because there's never been a princess of friendship before. She'll be great in the long run. You can't compare it to giving her the title of doctor, because everyone knows what to expect from a doctor. Celestia has basically given her total freedom to write her own job description, which is a blessing and a curse. Most artists are familiar with how much easier it is to work within some constraints, as opposed to coming up with something entirely new. The inspiration will hit her eventually. As for her behavior in this episode, I think she is going somewhat insane and/or depressed from boredom and loneliness. She thought the castle map was going to solve her problem by making the decisions for her, but apparently it doesn't provide a full time job. And apparently her friends haven't had much time for her this season either, since she said she's read all of her books in Made in Manehattan, and we now know that the total number is around 20000. And then they try to make her say she's jealous, when what she's actually feeling is much deeper than that, but not yet clear enough to put into words. Yes she was jealous on the surface, but forcing her to admit it did more harm than good without addressing the underlying reason that she felt so left out in the first place.

Read this http://www.fimfiction.net/story/200645/fat-for-an-alicorn But actually, I'll guess somewhere around 300 pounds. A real pony of her height would be much heavier, but they're longer and fatter and not built for flying.

This is the first thing that came to mind for me I think she needs something really bubbly and upbeat. The background music that plays during the short wedding setup montage after the changelings are gone fits her personality well too.

It doesn't take 22 minutes. A single moment can change everything. For Twilight, it was when her friends arrived to help her fight Nightmare Moon. And for Diamond, it was during the Light of Your Cutie Mark song. She was on the hunt to take advantage of Pip's weakness, but the crusaders explained to her what she could do different, and she listened. It says a lot about a person/pony if they can break out of a mental state like that and stop before doing anything bad, rather than just begging forgiveness afterward. IMO, punishment should be sort of a last resort. It's a crude tool to maintain law and order by means of fear. If someone experiences an internal shift to where they no longer want to do bad things, then it's not necessary. But education is still needed, or else they might revert to being bad just because they don't know what else to do (this is one of the big problems with our prison system in America). The crusaders really shined here, with the line "you can redeem yourself, but by helping others, not by being mean." Don't just tell someone not to do something bad, tell them what they can do that's good. A more detailed explanation of how to help others would have been even better, but I'll give it a pass because of time constraints, and because writing musical dialogue isn't easy If Diamond was already an adult, I'd be more skeptical of her ability to change. But she's right at the age where her true personality reveals itself/is created, so a constructive approach to helping her will be more effective than punishment.

Yup. She was a clueless kid, rolling with the life she was dealt. Now she's reached the point of mental/emotional maturity to see other possibilities and choose her own path, and she's chosen a good one. Giving her a true second chance and not making her suffer for her past sins feels like the best way forward. But she does probably need help learning social skills and empathy, because she doesn't have any experience being nice and will probably hurt somepony's feelings by accident at some point otherwise.

I hate buzzkill Applejack bringing up dead parents when I'm trying to be happy.

It's all so vague, the whole episode can pretty much be spun any way you like. My interpretation is that it was a test of character first, and a test of power second. Twilight could win alone, win with friends, lose alone, or lose with friends. Losing alone would probably be the only way to fail the test, and winning with friends gets the highest score (because of the self sacrifice aspect mentioned in the episode, as well as proving leadership skills befitting a princess). Another possibility is that the entire test thing was just a distraction to keep Twilight from getting freaked out about being put in charge of a national crisis. She'd be so busy worrying about disappointing Celestia, the real threat would seem like nothing at all Or it was because Celestia knows how much Twilight likes school and that she'd feel more proud of herself for passing a test than she would for saving an empire, and Celestia wanted her to feel proud of herself because it would help her accept her role as princess later. Or how about considering it in context of the previous episode, Canterlot Wedding? There, Celestia didn't trust Twilight's instincts, and made things a lot worse as a result. So this was actually Celestia teaching herself a lesson, proving that Twilight is absolutely trustworthy and will do the right thing even if ordered to do something stupid. I'm sure you could interpret it in just as many anti-Celestia ways.

That is awesome! I think the "magic" theory is the correct one. But another fun one is that they have setae (the little hairs on insect/spider/gecko feet). Here's a comic about it https://derpibooru.org/316954

Pretty much what Princess Sunset said. Troubleshoes is the trickiest, because his mark appeared when he felt like he was doing what he was meant to do, but he was succeeding at his rope routine at the time. So if he was meant to clown around, shouldn't it have appeared after he screwed up, rather than before? But then the CMC were the opposite case. When helping him, they didn't feel like they were doing what they were meant to do, even though they really were. So I guess marks are triggered by a certain emotion, rather than action. This was also foreshadowed near the end of Call of the Cutie when that filly said "maybe I got my mark too soon." And then there's Diamond Tiara, who did discover her talent (getting ponies to do what she wants), but used it for personal gain, whereas it could also be used to organize others into productive teams. So in that case as well, she probably did experience the emotion of doing what she was meant to do (being the boss of a group). But this theory implies that marks are born in, and only have a trigger to reveal themself. So even if a pony does get it "too soon", it's not like they could have gotten something different by waiting longer. So the CMC are sort of like cutie mark doctors, helping ponies understand what their mark means if they triggered its appearance without knowing their true talent, or if they do know their talent but don't know what to do with it. But they might also help blank flanks discover their talents, especially if they're past normal cutie mark age and still having trouble. A lot of people in real life are in this situation, so it would be a great moral to show that that's ok and you shouldn't give up.

That is adorable to imagine I assume they do the "Pinkie!" cheer? I usually have a terrible memory for lyrics, but this show's songs tend to be pretty simple and clearly sung, so I remember a lot of them Some of my favorites/best memorized are Winter Wrap Up, Smile, BBBFF, This Day Aria, Better Than Ever, Shine Like Rainbows, May The Best Pet Win, Becoming Popular, Babs Seed, What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me, True True Friend. We'll Make Our Mark is the latest addition to my favorites, but I don't quite have it memorized yet because it's so emotional and I want to savor it before I add it to my daily playlist

ALL OF THE YES! DERPY IS DINKY'S MOMMY! IT IS CANON! Or at least, extremely close to canon, considering the subject of the main storyline. I didn't like the episode that much overall (too much suspense, not enough talking at the end), but this is just awesome.

Probably, yes. This episode reminds me very much of Magical Mystery Cure, being a musical, and a major change of status quo. Also like MMC, it could have been extended to 2 parts. Though it didn't really need it the way MMC did. Another similarity that i very much appreciate is that it wasn't done at the end of the series, so we can see what their lives will be like from here on. I think it's best just the way it is, one episode in the middle of the season. That way a lot of us could be surprised rather than expecting something big this week, and we can see them get started on their new quest right away rather than having to wait half a year or more. On the other hand, I do think the finales have gotten overdramatic, so doing something more personal like this would be a good change. But then a lot of people would probably complain that it's not dramatic enough, and that would be less fun than the overwhelming positivity it's gotten this way.