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PoisonClaw

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  1. PoisonClaw
    I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but I've finally worked up the effort and motivation to put out two Top 10 lists for my personal favorite and least favorite episodes of Friendship is Magic.
     
    Though while compiling the Favorite list, I realized that I have a lot of favorite episodes to the point I could have made it a Top 20 and still not had enough room. So I'm starting by getting a few of the episodes that just barely missed the list by the smallest or margins out of the way!
     


    Power Ponies


     

    I like comic books, and if you’ve read enough of them then you know that comics have a tendency to get very weird, very quickly. So when you have an entire episode taking place in a comic book, you just know things are going to get nuts.
     
    Power Ponies is just a really fun episode, seeing the Mane 6 in the role of non-copyright infringing super heroes fighting against an unbelievably hammy villain in The Mane-iac, who doesn’t so much as chew the scenery as she rips hugs chunks out of it for breakfast.
     


    Magic Duel


     

    Season 3 as a whole is at worst often regarded as the lowest point of the show and at best easily forgettable. With only thirteen episodes compared to the twenty-six of every other season, a lackluster opener that introduced what was widely regarded as the worst villain (at least until Sunset Shimmer) and possibly the most controversial ending to a season to date (to the point people are still arguing about it well over a year later) the quality of each episode in turn ended up becoming skewed.
    Good episodes had to work even harder to get noticed and bad or average episode felt even worse without a higher ratio of quality episodes to counteract them. With that being said, Magic Duel is one of the few highlights of the season.
     
    Within the literal first few seconds of Magic Duel, a dark tone has already set up shop. I like when subtle darker undertones are introduced to kid’s media, because it shows that the writers respect their audience enough to understand the more mature themes (although there is a limit obviously). Plus, we have the return of the Great and Powerful Trixie, as well as the presence of an artifact called the Alicorn Amulet, being the first time the word “Alicorn” appeared in the show proper.
     


    Dragonshy


     

    Dragonshy was a hard one to not include. While there have been better episodes since it, Dragonshy will always be significant to me because this was the episode when I truly became a fan of this show. You could argue that I was technically a fan after watching the first two episodes and then deciding to continue watching, but Dragonshy was the episode that solidated my status as a fan of this show.
     


    Rarity Takes Manehattan


     

    Originally, Rarity Takes Manehattan was actually in the top ten, but after thinking it over, I realized that there were better episodes to take its place. That doesn’t mean I think Rarity Takes Manehattan is bad, far from it actually. This episode highlights why Rarity is one of my favorite characters and was a welcome addition after Season 3 went without a single Rarity focused episode. I have heard that Spike at Your Service was at first going to be a Rarity focused episode, but that idea was scrapped after the writers had a hard time with not making her a total jerk and she was relegated to a secondary role in the episode.
     
    With such a long drought without a Rarity focused episode, Rarity fans like myself leapt for joy when Rarity Takes Manehattan was announced. If that wasn’t enough, this episode not only gave up our first actual look at the city of Manehattan outside of flashbacks, as well as introduced a multitude of new characters such as the despicable Suri Polomare and the instantly lovable Coco Pommel, but this was the first episode in the “Keys of Harmony” arc, which set fansites ablaze with speculation and Wild Mass Guessing.
     
    With that out of the way, time to move on to the actual entries!
  2. PoisonClaw

    Griffon Designs

    By PoisonClaw,

    So, I noticed something while looking for references for a possible griffon character. It’s common knowledge that while ponies use the same body shape (baring a few exceptions), there are noticeable differences between genders, namely muzzle shape and eyelashes/lack there of. Thing is that these differences apply to griffons as well.
     
    As of the end of Season 4, a total of five griffons have appeared on screen. The first was obviously Gilda in “Griffon the Brush Off”,

    The second was Gustave Le Grand from “MMMystery On The Friendship Express”. Even though this introduced a griffon of both genders, two is not an adequate sample size to make any comparison for the griffon species as a whole.

    Then Rainbow Falls aired, which included not one, not two, but three griffons (one male and two females) present in the background of several scenes.

    Between three females and two males, certain patterns started to appear.
    A griffon’s fur coat, feathers and talons/beak are all different colors.
    Talons and beaks are always the same color.
    The tuft at the end of a griffon’s tail is always the same color as their wings.

    Presumably, these characteristics are present in every member of the Griffon species, though there are rare exceptions.
    Both Gilda and one of the female griffons have white head feathers as opposed to their wing feathers. This means that griffons can have two different colored feathers, something I can’t say the same to in regards to Pegasus.***
    One of the female griffons has black talons/beak, but also black feathers. However, she still has at least three different colors overall.
    Three of the five griffons have yellow talons, marking that as the most common color, though other colors do exist.

    With that out of the way, let’s talk about gender differences in regards to ponies. Baring ponies with unique character models like Big Macintosh and Fleur, there are three distinct differences between genders that can be noticed at a glance:
    A different muzzle shape, rounded for mares and more boxy for stallions
    Mares have eyelashes, while stallions do not.
    Some stallions have unshaven fetlocks the same color as their manes, namely Fancy Pants, Shining Armor and Big Macintosh.

    What I found is that two of these distinctions also apply to griffons. Male griffons have noticeably larger and wider beaks compared to females, similar to how different species of birds have different beak shapes and sizes.
     
    Secondly, notice that Gilda's most distinct feature is a “wing-shaped” marking around her eyes, also seen on the two female griffons from Rainbow Falls. This marking is always a different color to their head feathers, either a secondary feather color or the same color as their talons/beak.
     
    Comparably, this could be considered a griffon’s “eyelashes” and as such male griffons do not naturally have these markings around their eyes. Why am I even bringing all this up? Well, because I’m still finding griffon designs that have these markings regardless of gender. It was understandable at first because most used Gilda’s model as a base, but now it’s about as weird as if a stallion had eyelashes and I'm just pedantic about those sort of details.
     
    ***BONUS RANT!
     
     
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