dekutree64

That it does. Such beautiful music, and finally finding out what they're meant to do, and Scootaloo has a sister now so she's not left out in any way And their cutie marks are perfect. Crusaders forever. I said myself after Troubleshoes that it would be great if they continued helping other ponies after getting their marks. https://mlpforums.com/topic/127211-s05e06-appleoosas-most-wanted/?p=3722080 And Silver Spoon getting fed up with DT's attitude is something I've been wanting to see for a long time too.

You put the spoiler in the title, dang it

He also saved Twilight from the door of fear in Crystal Empire. I'd like to see more episodes like that. Twilight and Spike working as a team. Amending Fences was a good one. It would have felt a lot more lonely without his presence. He also has a seat in the castle, so I don't see why the map shouldn't summon him as well. Or at least, whenever it summons Twilight, he should come with her.

Haven't you seen Sleepless in Ponyville? It's the bestest episode of the entire series. As for this episode, I thought it was pretty good. Rainbow and Scootaloo's scenes were definitely my favorite part. I really wish we could have heard them sing. After Scootaloo's performance in The Show Stoppers, it could have been anywhere from hilarious to totally awesome, and in any case would have been far more enjoyable than Apple Bloom and Big Mac's cringe fest. Though Big Mac's Adam's apple showing at the end was pretty funny. Also this: That's Golden Harvest's house. She has a carrot farm next door to Sweet Apple Acres.

Twilight/Celestia Spike/Rarity Scootaloo/Rainbow Dash Diamond Tiara/Silver Spoon Lyra/Bonbon Sonata/Aria I used to ship Flutterdash, but then Dash traded her for a book. Plus I realized they most likely never knew eachother well as kids or else they would have shared their cutie mark stories sooner, and that was part of what I liked about them. Celestia/Discord is my #1 enemy ship, because it threatens my beloved Twilestia

Xena: Warrior Princess had a time loop episode, but the key to that one was If anything, I'd expect someone to get killed, do a big sad scene, and then loop back to before. Surely the loop break will be something happy and friendship related. But I don't think there'll be any killing at all. Just sadness from lack of friendship, assuming we get to see a "what if" for each of their lives if the rainboom hadn't happened.

Nope, they definitely need to do another where the Twilights study eachother, and the nature of magic in the human world. I'm also quite curious whether human Twilight would become a unicorn or alicorn if she went through the portal...

Well, the ladybug did show up again in Friendship Games, but not around the portal.

Not bad, but not the best either. That stage didn't exactly look like an afternoon project, so the "little things can make a big difference" moral is spoiled a bit. But at least the props they used were nice and crappy looking Yeah, that is an interesting concept. Twilight is too powerful for her own good, and the map knows it. Makes me think of Celestia, and how she hardly ever does anything herself because that would rob everypony else of valuable learning experiences. I was hoping their solution would be to call Twilight and ask her to come fix it for them. She was so bored, she would have loved it. But I guess this really is better, since otherwise the neighborhood ponies wouldn't have seen that a little effort can make a big difference. I hope some future episode focuses on Twilight figuring out what good she can do between map summonings. Not quite! She bought that new hat for AJ from him. And speaking of the hat, I was torn between horror and laughing my head off when she ran it over with the lawnmower. It all happened so fast But definitely horror when Rarity just threw it in the trash like it was nothing. But I guess this means that it's not a specific special hat, and just one of the many from the hat and bow closet. I wish they would have gone to visit Applejack's aunt and uncle. Even for a short scene that doesn't accomplish anything, just while they were searching for their friendship problem. But overall it was pretty enjoyable. Nice to see Coco again, and this explains why she wasn't used in Canterlot Boutique. Not enough Rarity/Coco shipping though

Definitely advanced. The only other pony I can recall ever seeing do it is Celestia at the end of Lesson Zero. And of course Discord does it. But as far as regular unicorns go, it seems like the type that requires a special talent.

They were probably hoping that there'd be enough other unhappy people that the show would start losing money and Hasbro would have no choice but to either cancel the show or revert the change.

Heya SasQ! Glad to see you're still around and spotting curious things as usual FlutterstepHD may be onto something with them indicating alternate universes rather than portals. There's another one in Apple Bloom's exterminator dream in Bloom and Gloom, around 7:10. No portal, but not the real world. None in Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle's nightmares, though. I checked Too Many Pinkie Pies as well since the mirror pool is sort of portal-like, but none there either. There's a filly wearing a ladybug costume in Luna Eclipsed, but I don't think that really counts. The EqG ladybug definitely seems like a recurring character, but the other ones may be coincidence. The Breezy one may just be there as a size comparison, and the Bloom and Gloom one is there because they needed a harmless bug for Silver Spoon taunt Apple Bloom with. But I'll keep an eye out for more of them, just incase they are intentional

FINALLY another Rarity/Rainbow episode! And it's 100% exclusively them! Pretty rare not to even have a short appearance by a third main character. I love continuity, so it was great to see the new botique and Sassy Saddles featured again so soon. Am I the only one who noticed how similar Dash's "my bad" was to Derpy? And here she was the one giving Derpy a hard time about her clutziness in The Last Roundup... But apparently it was just a poorly designed door, since the mail pony thumped it too. Does it count as an official date, Rainbow inviting Rarity to the Wonderbolts dinner? I'm not that much of a Raridash shipper, but this episode does have some good material. Rainbow seemed quite happy to have Rarity around, especially at the practice session, And Rarity obviously knows Dash very well and accepts her for who she is, not making a big deal about messing up the boutique, or Dash's slobbish eating, or spilling Rarity's drink on her beautiful dress. It must be nice to live in a nudist society where it's perfectly acceptable to change clothes right in the middle of the ballroom Also sweet not letting the others interrupt Rainbow's ridiculous happy dance. Rainbow's starry expressions over Wind Rider were pretty cute. Too bad he didn't deserve them. I wonder how many other potential record breakers he's sabotaged before? Rainbow really could end up being one of the most legendary Wonderbolts of all time, not only for being the fastest, but for her sense of honor, whereas the other seem to be mostly jerks. But not only did this episode contain Raridash shipping, it indirectly contains Rarilight shipping. How awesome would Rarity and Twilight be as a detective pair? And how much influence did Twilight's performance in MMMystery on the Friendship Express have on Rarity's interest in mystery novels and detective work? Since Rarity was one of the culprits before, it's hard to tell if she would have been good at solving the case back then or not. And how about Raripie, since they both narrate their own adventures in the third person? The mystery solving was pretty fun. I didn't guess the result right off the bat, and actually was starting to suspect Dash sleep-writing the note just before Dash herself thought the same thing But by the time they got to the raspy voice at the bakery, I was pretty sure it had to be Wind Rider. All in all, a great episode. My only complaint is that there wasn't more focus on the performance itself at the end. Sometime there needs to be a Rainbow Dash episode that really focuses on the joy of flying, and shows what it's like from her perspective.

I think the #1 thing that sets it apart from other cartoons is the beautiful 2D artwork. I really don't care much for 3D animation, and most 2D shows these days look like they're made ugly on purpose. Add to that several other things I like... diverse and interesting character personalities, minimal focus on death and sadness, good music, story continuity, world building, mythology references. But even then, I probably wouldn't have ever watched it if not for the large and artistic fandom

Yeah, I do think that's a significant issue needing dealt with. Rainbow's situation is even more troublesome than Rarity's. Wonderbolt Academy seems like it was originally written to solve that, by eliminating her desire to join. But then at the last minute they reverse the whole thing, so the conflict remains unresolved. Rarity's solution of making dresses in Ponyville and selling them in Canterlot is a good compromise. The only problem is that she doesn't get to see the customers' reactions. It would be great for me, since I'm satisfied just by making things, and selling them is an unpleasant necessity to keep doing it. But Rarity enjoys it, so the loss of that aspect may hurt her in the long run. I wish they would have just moved the whole group to Canterlot. I wrote some posts about it a couple years ago. Applejack is the only one who would really have a hard time with it. She'd probably have to run a store instead of directly growing the food. Fluttershy could take over maintenance of the castle garden, Pinkie could open her own party planning business, Rarity and Rainbow would have their dreams, and Twilight could help Celestia and Luna with royal duties, teach at the school, fight monsters, and whatever else she wants. But now that Twilight has a giant castle tree rooted into Ponyville, Rarity and Rainbow are pretty much stuck being separated from their original goals.

SSCS9K was an interesting one because Flim and Flam were using technology to actually provide a high quality product faster. It was more of a pro-Luddite episode than anti-capitalism. In a way, it was pro-capitalism, because as we're seeing in the real world, when you use technology to reduce the total amount of work needed for a civilization to flourish, the money balance gets thrown out of whack and capitalism starts merging into socialism. Rarity is another example of healthy capitalist business. Work hard doing what you love, treat customers with respect, and you make a good living. Sassy's approach is more like how real world capitalism is implemented, and IMO does have its place too. Rarity could have outsourced the manufacturing of princess dresses, giving the customers what they wanted and raking in the cash under Sassy's business model. As long as she paid the factory workers a decent wage rather than taking most of the money for herself like most real world CEOs do, I don't see a problem. The reason she didn't do it is not because it's evil, but because it's not what she wanted to do. She wanted to personally craft unique dresses and sell them in Canterlot, and so she did. Either way would have been a fine business decision, but only one was a good personal decision.

When Celestia is involved, it's usually her own fault for not giving Twilight enough information. Twilight is not good at "going on faith", yet Celestia always asks her to. Same thing with Pinkie sense, except it wasn't deliberate. I do think Twilight looks down on Pinkie more than she should, but only Pinkie, and not ponies in general. Trying to teach Rainbow with Twilight's preferred methods was just because Twilight hasn't had much experience being a teacher yet. And she figured that one out pretty quickly, so if anything, that gives her more bragging rights for her own intelligence If any of the other ponies were as smart as her, they would have seen that their explanations of the Pinkie sense weren't working for Twilight, and adapted to Twilight's own learning style to explain it.

OCs should be totally fine. Hasbro has been great about letting fans make and sell plushies of even the main characters that directly compete with their own merchandise, as long as nobody is seriously mass producing them. They technically could make a stink over it, but obviously they considered it a better bet that a healthy and productive fandom would create more interest in the show and get them more money in the long run... which I think has proven to be true It's part of why I'm a fan.

Everybody on derpibooru has been tagging her with Moonlight Raven since a couple hours after the episode aired, so there must have been a 4chan thread or something where they agreed on it. Sounds a bit too much like a cheesy OC name to me, but I think SpikusFyre is right that any goth sounding name is going to be like that

The chariot is probably just a public image thing. When she needed to project an image of personal strength for Twilight in Lesson Zero, she came alone. Either that or the chariot was just too slow for such an emergency. As for how fast she is, I'd love to see her race Rainbow Dash in an episode sometime Probably wouldn't win, but might be close enough to freak Dash out a bit She also has rainbow hair... I wonder if the old legend of the sonic rainboom was actually based on her? Maybe she quit doing it after getting too many complaints, like real life aircraft making sonic booms That would be awesome if her and Dash both made them during a race. As for why Celestia didn't save Rarity, the Wonderbolts were in charge of rescue missions, and by the time they were knocked out, it would have been hard for her to get there in time. And Dash was already in the air, and Celestia probably knew about her speed, so that gave Dash a better shot at saving them. And if Celestia had jumped in, then Dash (and any other potential rescuers that could have been preparing to jump) probably would have backed off, assuming Celestia can fix anything with ease. So it would have actually reduced the probability of success if she'd gotten involved. Or maybe it was already over by the time she finished the mental calculation on all that

That's not necessarily true. Many straight males prefer F/F ships, and many straight females prefer M/M ships. With the ridiculous number of shows and movies produced nowadays, and large number of potential viewers, eventually someone is going to realize that rather than trying to appeal to everyone and doing a mediocre job of it and getting drowned out in the crowd, they could appeal to a subset and do an excellent job of it and rake in the cash. Het couples are almost a liability... shippers are indifferent to them, and non-shippers don't want romance in the first place. But the trouble is, TV writers don't know how to do romance. They always skip over the important parts, and make the relationship a source of conflict rather than treating it more like the BFF style relationship featured in many shows. There are countless fanfic writers who could turn shows into masterpieces of shipping goodness, but on the rare occasion that a show actually canonizes a couple, they invariably wreck it with bad writing. So it's likely that things will continue as usual, because whoever does gamble their show in an attempt to appeal to shippers will probably go down in flames. But that's precisely what makes shipping so much fun... the intensity of emotion. If done right, the satisfaction would be unprecedented. But getting back to the actual thread topic, as long as they don't rule out the possibility of Lyrabon romance, I'm reasonably happy. I wish they could kiss on screen, but I guess keeping it ambiguous is for the best, so as not to offend anyone too badly.

I think straight at birth. It was the wind of the rainboom that tangled it up into its curly form. Seems like it left a magical impression, connecting that with her happiness.

Well there goes my theory That sounds rather like the Arkenstone from Tolkien's stories. I guess it's still possible that the crystal ponies had some sort of contact with the Everfree tree, but perhaps more likely that crystal architecture is just a naturally occurring thing, and crystal ponies did the most with it. There is the crystal mine under Canterlot too, and gems in the ground all over Equestria. Even under the apple farm: So yeah, I agree with your idea that the heart and tree formed independently, but in similar ways, and just took different forms depending on the environment.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think there must be a connection between the tree and the crystal heart. Both the Everfree tree and Twilight's castle look like crystal pony architecture. So either the crystal ponies based their architecture on the Everfree tree, or more likely, the Everfree tree is the offspring of an older northern tree that the crystal heart came from. But considering the fact that special trees almost never survive to the end of a story, and that harmony trees seem to reproduce when threatened, it's quite possible that the northern tree no longer exists. Here's another thought... what if the alicorn-tree connection is what gives them near-immortality? Maybe Sombra killed the crystal princess and the hypothetical northern tree died as a result, or maybe he killed the tree and the princess died as a result. Celestia and Luna are connected to the Everfree tree somehow, so could it be that Discord planted the plunder seeds as a precaution, so if Celestia and Luna defeated him, then he'd eventually get revenge by killing their life support tree? By that theory, Twilight is doubly immortal since she's connected to two trees now. And Cadance is mortal, because she doesn't have a tree like the old crystal princess did. Heck, maybe the mane 6 are all immortal by connection to the castle tree. Plus Spike, though his natural lifespan is already very long. I wonder if Twilight's castle has any magical elements in it somewhere...

If anything, I think the tree is based on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Here's a thread talking about it, though tragically the images seem to have been deleted https://mlpforums.com/topic/45643-symbolism-in-mlpfim-and-hidden-knowledge/. Cadance's cutie mark matches the crystal heart, which seems to be a similar sort of magical relic to the elements of harmony. I do wonder if they have any connection at all (perhaps there's another tree up north somewhere, which the heart came from?), but either way that's probably the reason Cadance's mark isn't on the main tree. Actually, it's a bit puzzling why Celestia and Luna are represented on the main tree, before they ever had any interaction with it. My current theory is that the tree is biological, not a god or anything. It's not clear whether it's sentient, or just has automatic responses like real plants do. In any case, the near-death experience of getting strangled by plunder vines while it was weakened without the elements seems to have triggered its reproductive response, i.e. producing the box, which Twilight's castle-tree sprouted from. Twilight's tree has that map, but that still doesn't prove sentience. It may still just be an elaborate biological feature, which can detect disharmony and display what aspects are missing in certain areas (i.e. which element bearers should go fix it). The tree has roots in the ground and branches in the air, both of which could function as antennas to pick up electromagnetic waves. Maybe certain frequencies correspond to each element, and living things give off "good vibes" or "bad vibes" depending on their mood, and the tree reflexively displays any points of concentrated badness. One thing that's puzzled me ever since the castle tree sprouted is the fact that it has 8 pointed stars all over it. Even the box it sprouted from had an 8 pointed star on top. I'd think a tree specifically bonded with Twilight would have 6 pointed stars to match her cutie mark. Perhaps 7 to include Spike. But 8? Maybe Discord will get a throne after all.