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In Friendship is Magic, we could see a great variety of (mythological) creatures during the 9 seasons, Equestria grew and extended more and more to other creatures (dragons, faucets, changing were the first), in the epilogue, we could see that all creatures live and share in harmony. Considering that G5 will be a completely new world (no leaks are accepted here), what creatures would you like to see in the next generation? Is any already explored in the series, or is it one that we have not seen? How would these creatures develop with ponies? (Hippogriffs, Dragons, Kirins, Griffins, Crystal Ponies, Yaks, Changelings, Zebras, Breezies, Sea Ponies, Alicorns, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Draconequus?) Personally, in addition to Earth Ponies, Unicorns and Pegasus, I would like to see the sea ponies, I think it is a great opportunity to have them as one of main races, I would also love to have changelings, hippogriffs and kirins. Alicorns are a complicated option for me, since in G4 they were explained as ''rare'' and I don't know if it's a good idea to bring them with the same concept, since it would be redundant. Comments here!

I'm interested to see what G5 has to offer

In G1, my favorite ponies are Firefly and Applejack, in G3 my favorites are Sunny Daze and Minty, and in G4 I love Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Sunset Shimmer. I'm not quite familar enough with G2 to pick any favorites. What about y'all?

Post here some pictures of your MLP Stuff! Tips: You can just text the thing, if you don't want to post a picture (But it will be more cool if you post some picture ) If you don't want to take a picture, you can put a image from google! Well, at this moment i don't have any stuff of my little pony, i'm waiting the Easter week to buy a easter egg and get a little doll cheapest (because in my country those dolls are very EXPENSIVE). So i'll leave here Fluttershy and Twilight waiting new threads.

I usually play this game with my family to test their knowledge on MLP. We don't get very far, so I thought I might try it with the ponies on the forums. How this game works: You must name one MLP character you know but not one that has been named before. Simple, right? Rules: This is only G4. This isn't really about the past generations. You can name characters from the MLP IDW comics, Equestria Girls, FIM, and the movie. You can only name a character once. This game is to see how many characters are in the MLP G4 universe. So I guess I'll start with: Twilight Sparkle

http://mlpforums.com/topic/4722-pony-fan-clubs/ Welcome To The Tirek Fanclub! Tirek is a G1 villain brought back for the season 4 finale. In G1 he conquered a kingdom and turned its prince into a gargoyle named Scorpan who transformed back once he was defeated. His goal was to bring on the "night that never ends" with his rainbow of darkness making him an influence for Nightmare Moon. A few rules -No spamming post to become biggest fans -This is a children’s show, and believe it or not there are younger people who go on these forums, please limit content to suggestive only. For example you may post a picture of two ponies kissing, but they cannot be doing anything inappropriate, or showing things inappropriate. (or else someones head will roll) -Do not post a picture of Applejack in the Luna forum, because Applejack belongs in the Applejack forum unless of course Luna is also in the picture. -Do not hate on another fan club -All of MLP Forums rules still apply. -Fan art is encouraged but all images with the exception of the cover image in this first post must have the proper spoiler tags. Large amounts of unspoilered images on a single page can often cause lag and nobody likes to deal with lag.

We all know the story of the modern my little pony fanbase. An unexpected and once monumental fanbase that dominated the internet during 2012 and 2013 respectively. The fanbase known for a huge amount of 13-30 year old males has seemingly disappeared from the mainstream and is now but a memory of a very strange time. I was one of those people who used to love it. At the age of 13 in 2012 I watched an episode and the rest is history. Up until 2015 I loved MLP. But during season 5 I lost interest and started to look elsewhere. For the longest time I could never figure this out. In my search for answers the first one I came to was that the fanbase had ruined it for me. Then over time I came to the conclusion that it was never good to begin with and that I and everyone else involved were getting in on a trend and deluded ourselves to believe it was good. My actual problem couldn't be further from the truth. MY PROBLEM My actual problem was that the show I liked had simply ended. A youtuber talked about this in depth and explained that seasons 1-4 was pretty much it's own separate show from seasons 5 and onward. Seasons 1 through 4 were dedicated to the development of the main characters established in season 1. By season 4 this process (with the exception of the CMC) was over. Season 5 and onward has been about these new characters that I simply do not care about. Truth of the matter is that MLP seasons 1-4 was actually a pretty good television programme that was loved for good reason. MY EXPERIENCE The reason I adopted the "it was a fad" idea was simply down to the shame I felt due to watching it. Internally my defence for it lasted all throughout my interest in it. I started to feel shame once I had been away from it for some time. And let me tell you, the judgement from other people was awful. I could take a little bit of teasing about it (hell I'd even joke about it myself a little). But that doesn't excuse how other people acted over it. I lost two friends to this hobby. Two people actively rejected me due to liking MLP. To add to that my family weren't exactly nice about it either. I recently came to the realisation that my mother had actually attempted to stop me watching it on one occasion. Since I let go of this interest we haven't talked about it since. Hell there have been occasions where I've mentioned my little pony and they quickly like to change the subject (most likely due to shame of having a son/brother who was into that). I won't claim we needed a rights movement or anything but some very socially conservative people genuinely would hate you for watching it. I wanted to buy merch but now you can see why I never had the guts to do it. On a lighter note having re-watched the earlier episodes I feel completely ok about what I did. I liked my little pony: friendship is magic... and that was ok. THE FUTURE It has come to my attention that a generation 5 of MLP is in development. Without spoiling anything I will say I am digging the ideas brought up and do believe it could make MLP a trend again. Maybe not to quite the extent as in 2012/13 but it could get close. In the run up to it's launch and when more official info comes out I may well become active around here again. If you still remember me I hope you all know that I do not hold anything against you people and your hobby and want to thank you for letting me be involved. And I hope that in the near future I may be involved again.

Hi! I've recently rejoined the mlp world as a veteran G1 collector and enthusiast! G4 finally started growing on me and I eventually succumbed. Now my G1 styled ponysona, Sabina, needs a G4 rendition. Anyone interested? My art style is definitely not G4 sorry! I've been influenced by G1 animation styles like the traditional cartoons as well as the G1 Tales series. I'll post my examples, who also happen to be my ponysona. Any takers?

...not one single character appears in each and every episode. Seriously, have a good think. How many other television shows have done this? When I first became a brony I thought Twilight would be in every one because she was clearly represented as being the main character but that all changed when I saw Hearts and Hooves Day and now she's appearing less and less... :/

I know we're probably going to have a lot of, "No Alicorn Twilight!" and "No Equestria Girls!". So with those two aside, what would you change about Generation 4? Would you change the character goals? Personalities? Villain styles? Story-lines? What do you think you could contribute to the show? I think one of my longest running ideas for the show take the side of the SFM short, "Remembrance", but that's just me. What about you?

Lauren Faust said during an interview that she would like to include ponies from previous generations in season 5. I personally would love to see some older generation ponies included like Wysteria, Minty and Sunny Daze for example. What older generation ponies would you like to see in future series if you would like to see them included? (Online Fan Art below)

Like I said before: I don't want G4 to end. I rather have G4 to live forever as the current generation like The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park. I mean why not split G4 into different categories like G4.1 or G4.2 for example and use the same art style like they did it in the show and the Equestria Girls movies too. Plus I'm hoping they would announce the future of MLP:FiM...I'm hoping that they could announce a CMC spinoff series, BUT this could be awesome! If they do that, I might be a showrunner and end up working with Jim Miller and Jayson Thiessen at DHX Media Vancouver, that would be 200% super cool. BUT the only way for Hasbro and DHX to create more G4 content is to expand its staff by forming a new studio focusing on more MLP G4/EG content. The new studio (a would-be joint venture between Hasbro and DHX Vancouver) would have Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles locations like Trey Parker and Matt Stone did with South Park. It would be SUPER cool if they hire JanAnimations...that would work REAL GOOD! The new studio would be called "My Little Studio" The point is: SunsetMaster really liked that idea on establishing a studio focusing on future G4 content. Come on Hasbro and DHX, do it!!! G4.0 = Main series and 2017 movie G4.1 = Equestria Girls series G4.2 = CMC spinoff series (MAYBE, shares no relation to the main show, with Season 5, the castle too and Button Mash!) G4.3 = Comic Book Series (from IDW Comics) G4.4 = Book Series by G.M Berrow

Rewrite any scene, song, or episode entirely in the style of G3 , I look forward to seeing what you guys will come up with.

I have been thinking and I did some digging. I looked everywhere for an answer but could not find one. So, I decided to make my own. I think I might have a theory of how all the generations of MLP are ACTUALLY a timeline. Yeah, that's right, a timeline. I'm pretty sure many of you are giving this thread a weird and doubtful look, but hear me out. Generation one has a fantasy feel to it and features humans. Yes, humans were once apart of the same world as the ponies, but something must have happened to them. You might all think that this is impossible and that humans were never in their world, but it actually isn't. Think about it. The humans could have been apart of the pony world for as long as they have been there, but many of the creatures their need food to survive. Seeing as this is a fantasy world with mythological creatures, the humans could have been killed off. Or some incurable disease wiped them out. The humans disappearing is a huge mystery. Maybe they are still around. Maybe they are not. Generation two has a more modern feel to it. The ponies in this act and behave much like humans do in our world. Complete with houses that look like ours, cars, and electricity. Their cities and towns are built much like our own. It is possible for the humans to have been around to help urbanize the ponies and themselves. Then after that, they might have died out, or just simply moved on to a different location. Generation three picks up right after generation two. The layout is much the same as the previous generation, with a few add-on's here and there. And some stuff taken away. So this one doesn't need much explanation. The only thing I have for this one is the lack of pegisi and unicorns. Yes, they are in this one, but not as much as the previous and the next. What happened between generation three and four takes a turn for the worse. Seeing as how the unicorn and pegisi population was on a decline, the earth ponies rose in influence and power. The latter two could not handle being under the rule of earth ponies and left. Leaving the once proud and beautiful cities and towns to crumble. Without the magic of the unicorns, the earth ponies were unable to repair the building or manufacture other materials. This caused the ponies to revert back to much simpler times. One where there was no electricity, no cars or big buildings. This is where generation four comes into play. The next and final generation (so far), Generation four. This one takes time between the two before it takes place. We already know that the three tribes on ponies came together after much hate and founded Equestria. Its the time before all this. The time where all pony population was declining. Coming to the verge of extinction. With only a few hundred from each tribe remained. After centuries of not contacting each other, the world shifts off balance. Harmony is at a loss and the pony tribes come together for an agreement. This is where the Hearths Warming Story picks up and is spoken from generation to generation. But hey! Its just a theory! Thanks for taking your time to read this post. Let me know if you agree or disagree with this and tell me why. Post them in the comments below!! By the way, Merry Christmas!

Several of my G4 brushable figures have dry, straw-like hair on their tails. The hair was like that straight out of the packaging. Strangely, their manes aren't dry - the manes are super soft and easy to brush and style. It's just the tail that has this problem. I style all of my ponies manes and tails. I wash and condition them thoroughly and then put curlers in their hair. Usually, this method keeps my ponies' manes and tails super soft, shiny, and pretty! However, many of the figures have tails that REFUSE to stop being dry, droopy, dull, and awful-looking. X__X Do any of you know how to deal with this problem? Or am I doomed to have my G4 ponies have brittle, stubbornly un-style-able tails forever?

Who else would like to see some sort of G4 Minty? Minty was pretty much the only good thing about G3. Though I suppose Derpy is like a G4 Minty, except cross-eyed and likes with muffins instead of socks.

See * for disclaimer, and explanation I'll be honest, this one was a bit of a slog. There's lots of 'stuff' going on in this comic arc, but the parts that seem relevant to worldbuilding are so fractured and the order of events seem confused. There are a couple of references dropped into the arc by the creative team that seems to indicate they did this deliberately to mess with analysis. Which makes anything derived from this arc suspect. That's annoying to me. If you don't care about continuity, that's fine. There are lots of shows/fictions/whatever that ignore continuity or constantly change continuity to suit whatever the story is at that time. Great, that's more fodder for the mill and it's fun to try to make sense of it all. However, deliberately sabotaging continuity just to annoy people is mean spirited and diminishes your own efforts. Reflections (Comic Issues 17-20, March 189h, April 30th, May 28th, June 25th 2014) Behold the Secrets of Star Swirl the Bearded If anyone knows the difference between a waxing crescent or a waning gibbous... she said waning gibbon. Huh? The term is gibbous, as in 'hunchback', not gibbon as in a type of lesser ape. That's a very strange mistake for Luna to make, and not know which phase of the moon it is. What's being shown there is a crescent moon, and if their moon has the same direction of phases as our, it is indeed a waxing crescent. Gibbous is the exact opposite where most of the moon is lit an there is a crescent of darkness on it. Waxing meaning the lit part of the moon is getting bigger. Waning meaning it's getting smaller. Rod Sterling pony? Maybe? Someone has told me this is supposed to be a character from Fringe, called 'Observer', but I've not watched Fringe so I can't tell. A very similar mirror to the Equestira Girls one, but slightly different in coloring. There's a batpony in the background, more evidence that the comics are hewing closer to fancannon continuity than the show. Ha, pink Celestia. Hasbro will never live that toy line mistake down. Also, Luna is being shown manipulating the sun, but with considerable effort. Which wasn't mentioned in the previous comic where Luna took over Celestia's day duties, I think. Establishing the mechanics of this mirror is different from... wait. 'Once during each cycle of the moon', that's not the same rule as specified in Equestria Girls? Or is it? If it is, then 30 moons (as said in the movie) is a *cycle* of the moon? Then 30 moons is a month, not 30 months... Huh? They're using 'moon' to represent an approximate day? Weird. And here they mention that Star Swirl (two separate words by the way, not Starswirl), has been gone for hundreds of years. Not a thousand, but hundreds. And Star Swirl's library is hidden in the caverns below Canterlot, not the Castle of the Two Sisters, and Luna was not privy to where it is. Fascinating. Does that mean that this was all built after Luna was exiled, or that Canterlot existed but wasn't the capital while the Castle of the Two Sisters was up and running. The large door into the caverns has a vague resemblance to the secret door into the Mines of Moria from the Lord of the Rings. Given the similar theme 'Speak Friend and Enter' to 'Friendship is Magic' I'm kinda surprised they don't make more of that here. Luna seems to think Star Swirl was borderline insane like Pinkie. Interesting. Star Trek reference in the sign, stellar cartography and jeffries tubes. Lucre cellar? A cellar for profit? Lucre is Middle English, from the Latin lucrum meaning profit. It's where we get the term 'lucrative'. And Pinkie is making fun of Rainbow, but in a rather nasty way because the sign says 'Besom Repository', which only a limited number of people (and ponies) will know means Broom Closet. Flashback to hundreds of years ago... but is before Luna was exiled. So ponies do have a weird sense of time, as that's over a thousand years ago now. Technically, yes a thousand is several hundred, but in my experience people tend to stop thinking about hundreds when a thousand ticks over. These caverns are huge. There's an entire city down here. Technically Athenaeum isn't a library so much as a temple devoted to the goddess Athena. Which has been applied to libraries, museums, laboratories, universities, etc. So I can see the confusion. Ha, it's a ponified Bat Cave from the 80's comics. And three oddly historical banners. A Caravaca Cross from Spain, something black and red that looks familiar but I can't place it, and a naval Japanese Flag from WWII. I'm a bit confused as to the choices there. Plus Applejack seems to have found the disassembled parts of Scaramanga's gun from 'The Man with the Golden Gun'. Ha! Dentist. Cute. Again establishing that the mirror portals may have different rules depending on the destination to be reached. It's not a simple as just knowing the 'address'. And in this continuity, it is implied that the 'Kingdom of Equestria' is new and growing. So the Equestria that exists in the 'modern age' is larger than the Equestria that Celestia and Luna first ruled over. It is also specifying here that the reason why the technology (and magic) of Equestria is all over the board historically is because the anachronistic parts were brought over from alternate universes by Star Swirl. Bat Poles from the 60's tv series. Which turns into the crazy contraption bits from a variety of cartoons, including Hong Kong Phooey, and Darkwing Duck. All the games Luna and Spike have been playing are ponified versions of Hasbro games. Cute. Back to Where You've Never Been Before Excelent answer Rainbow Dash, "I stopped asking." Okay, so this alternate universe is truly 'Through a Mirror Darkly', in that everything is reversed in some way. Interesting that they came through as the base of a statue again. This time of a statue of a superhero version of Discord... Trying to do parallels between Celestia & Star Swirl in the past and the Mane 6 in the now. It's looking like they *do* have something equivalent to the Elements of Harmony, but they're a different set. Fairness, Humility, Wisdom, Love... No mention of another two though to make a set of six. Celesta referring to Star Swirl as her only friend. Which is odd, but there was a previous reference to Luna becoming distant. Which is good because it give a bit of a time-span for Luna's fall, rather than the strange 'suddenly NM' version we got in the show. Alright, here we actually have something... odd. Unless that cloak covers wings, Sombra here is depicted as a Unicorn, *not* an Alicorn. But in order for this all to make sense, he has to be over a thousand years old right now. So he's effectively immortal, just like Celestia. But his physical form isn't the oddly distorted version we saw in the regular universe. So in this case his immortality isn't from dark magic corruption. So why is he still alive? And the alternate versions of Celestia and Luna. In rather silly looking costumes, to be honest. And Celestia's costume is constantly changing. Cute. Some of them are actually interesting as a variety of Disney villain costumes. Inevitable reveal. I'll be Your Mirror So in this reality, the Castle of the Two Sisters is still intact, and looms above Ponyville. I love all the notes tacked to the wall, except one. 'If you're reading this, you may be overthinking this comic book'. Yes, I'm reading this. Otherwise, why did you put it there? Some interesting changes between worlds. Cloudsdale is in ruins, several villages like Rainbow Falls and Dodge City don't exist. Spelling differences, what appears to be an evil Cadance to mirror a good Crysalis, so on and so forth. Oh, and Don't Blink. And Twilight and Pinkie complaining that continuity is pointless. Also, this version of King Sombra is easily the match for Celestia height-wise, but his horn is standard unicorn length rather than the longer version Celestia sports. So the rule here is that the more you travel to a parallel world, the more parallel it will become. To the point of bonding the parallel ponies together so one feels what the other feels... Which means that Twilight & company being here is still causing the parallelism to continue. Especially with the powerful Elements of Harmony along for the ride. This... isn't going to end well. That's a real custom in Japan, as I understand it. Writing a wish on a piece of paper and tying to a tree. Actually, writing a wish on a piece of paper and placing on some special location shows up in several cultures. And the lantern in the forest does recall the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And the lyrics to I'll be your Mirror, a Velvet Underground song from 1967. Okay, so Twilight at least considers the idea of a male alicorn. Though she does burst out laughing at the idea of that specific male alicorn. ... Okay, now I'm confused. This is indicating that Canterlot is in construction in this time-frame. But they visited Canterlot right at the beginning of the flashbacks. Unless that's a flash-back within a flash-back. Thank you, that's exactly what I expected to happen. So... alternate Luna was around while regular Luna was banished to the Moon, while alternate Sombra was around while regular Sombra was vanished with the Crystal Empire. Did anyone get exiled in this reality? The fracture images have a couple of implications that the good/evil mirror isn't perfect. A couple of the background ponies are... mirrored, but not necessarily by alignment. It looks like Vinyl/Octavia swap places, and Doctor Whooves is using a different incarnation. I'm not following the logic here, but okay. The idea seems to be to force parallelism instead of mirroring, which will again separate the worlds. But I thought more parallelism was the problem... I'm a bit lost. How Star Swirl Got His Hat Several alternate stories around this idea. Nothing stands out here for worldbuilding. And a double page spread with the alternate Mane 6, making a joke about how they didn't show up in the main comic.

See * for disclaimer, and explanation Twilight's Kingdom Part 1 & 2 (May 10th 2014 2 x 22 minutes) Part 1 A lot of 'official' stuff is taking place in the Crystal Empire this season. This brings up three possibilities, the most obvious being it's just a coincidence and we're simply not seeing all the important political happening in Canterlot. However, it's also possible that Celestia is very deliberately pushing the political focus to the Crystal Empire, either to speed up their social re-integration with the rest of Equestria, or less likely because the Crystal Empire is officially over Equestria in the hierarchy of nations. Duke and Duchess of Maretonia. And... court? These are the four oddly (and overly) dressed ponies from the Royal Box in the previous episode. They're being presented as foreign dignitaries, complete with their own gonfalon banner, which Twilight unfurls over the Crystal Palace? That's odd protocol. Normally you would see a bannerman carrying a smaller version of the banner *backing* the foreign dignitaries as they approach. Putting that banner on the Palace gives off really strange signals. Unless Maretonia was once part of the Crystal Empire, and this is all to re-establish that Maretonia is now back under Imperial protection. With a closer look at the mare I couldn't see very well previously, she's depicted as old as paramilitary stallion that's part of the court. Which might mean the elder pair are the prior Duke and/or Duchess, who abdicated in favor of their child due to their age. It's not exactly common, but abdicating due to infirmity did happen. Or they are the Duke/Duchess's parents, whichever one married into the rank. Or a combination, and they're not a couple in and of themselves. Twilight's crown has changed. I would have thought they would of duplicated the old tiara for consistency, even after giving it back to the tree. So Celestia also has a premonition system, which explains some of her rather odd behavior sometimes. We see Scorpan and Tirek in conjunction with Starswirl the Bearded, being described as a 'young unicorn wizard'. Which places this... when? It's being referred to as Equestrian Magic, but that may not refer to Equestria as a nation, but Equestrian as in a group name for all the pony races combined. Equestria as such could be named *after* this group name, rather than the group name descending from the name of the kingdom. So this could be before the Hearth's Warming Eve story, where Starswirl had an apprentice? Or are we dealing the Celestia 'anyone who hasn't reached a millennia is 'young' to me' point of view? With Celestia and Luna together and in power. Which places this story before the Nightmare Moon incident, but after the Discordian era? Which now makes the Hearth's Warming Eve story weird, unless there is something seriously up with Starswirl. I really need to get caught up on the comics, and I'm under the impression that Starswirl is referred to in one of the arcs I haven't read yet. I've almost accumulated enough stuff for Starswirl to add up to a new Worldbuilding article for my other blog. Wow, backreference. Interesting. This is the first time we've seen Celestia turn to someone *other* than Twilight. Huh. Okay, Tirek recognized Discord as if by description, but Discord didn't necessarily recognize Tirek. That's interesting. Likely that means Discord was stoned before Tirek arrived on scene. Which still makes Starswirl *really weird*, if he was around after Discord, yet before the founding of Equestria. Wait, with no pegasi there will be no rain in Equestria? I know they guided the weather, but natural weather still occurs in places like the Everfree forest. Unless Equestria is naturally a desert? And Earth pony 'strength' is necessary to tend the land. Hrmmmm. And Alicorn magic is in some way separate from Unicorn/Pegasis/Earth Pony magic. Part 2 But he's aware of a third one? He knows about Cadance, but not Twilight? Oh for pity's sake, Celestia. Every time you hamstring Twilight with this 'you must do it alone' stuff, it goes wrong. And the three of them know how to pass their power onto Twilight? I assume they much have consulted on this before Twilight showed up, or that's impressive to just 'know' how to do it. ... Luna's cutie-mark is does not include the dark splotches on her flank. Those are actual coat color variations, like the markings Pipsqueak has. Luna is a Pinto. While they all appear tired with their magic drained, there are several references to Tirek ruling after all this. So the removal of magic is not considered 'lethal'. Okay, here's something interesting. Discord's magic is also drainable. It has a completely different visual representation, and once drained Discord still looks like Discord, and for that matter still exists. So he's not truly an embodiment of Chaos Magic, as his physical form would likely fall apart if all his magic was drained. He's still a living creature, just with a very different, and very strong, magical signature. Tirek now seems to be able to track Twilight to some extent. I wonder if that's Discord's magic. Impasse. Which means the magic of four Alicorns is equivalent to magic of all the other ponies in Equestria + Discord... and whatever innate power Tirek had originally. Or, more likely there is a practical limit to how much magic can be 'leveraged' at any given time, and both Twilight and Tirek are at that limit. One or the other could technically be 'stronger', but can't put that excess magic into play in a useful way. Tirek is a dick to trees. And here's the other G1 reference, outside of Tirek. The Rainbow of Light, which is what defeated Tirek in G1. Oh lord those designs are silly looking. I hope they rethink those if they use this Rainbow Connection next season. And finally that 'official' map that Hasbro put out a long time ago is seen as the actual continent. Unfortunately. I was hoping that the map was meant to be stylized, and not actualized. The travel times and distances between places in Equestria are all messed up.

See * for disclaimer Season 3. A weird season overall for various reasons. Why did I get sick just when I got two two-parters to go through. Forgive me if this note-taking is a bit incoherent, or a veer into areas I normally don't touch. The Crystal Empire (Part 1 and 2) (November 10 2012, 2 x 22 minutes) Summary: The Return of the Crystal Empire, and yet another 'big threat' from Celestia's past comes with it. This is actually one I've gone over a lot in my worldbuilding blog, because there are a lot of bits and pieces that need making sense of. So this note-taking is likely going to point to that blog every once in awhile. Guard actually doing something. Delivering an incredibly vague message. Who sent it? This is obviously a pre-arranged message to indicate something, so does Celestia have Guards set up all over Equestria and beyond each with a short code phrase to indicate different unlikely but expected to happen at *some* time events? And Celestia is this in terms of a test? Weird. Heya Luna! The Empire cannot fall *again*, because it's magic is too dangerous to lose control over. Here is evidence that Celestia deliberately obscures history that she views as dangerous. She says her knowledge of the Empire is limited, but she was there, physically at the time. King Sombra. Physically he's quite different from other unicorns. The curved horn, the slit eyes, the pointed teeth, the odd black with white chevrons bit on his muzzle that I'm not sure what that is supposed to represent. The armor is fascinating, it recalls many 14-15th century suits of Spanish full harness I've seen, especially with the fluted collar at the top. Turned into shadow, and put a curse on the empire to make it vanish. This recalls Tambelon from G1's My Little Pony and Friends, but also Brigadoon and many other mythical 'cursed' towns that appear and disappear on a semi-regular basis. The fact that this city is referred to as an Empire is odd. There are two ways you get to be an Empire. One, you have several distinct cultural or ethnic groups being dominated by a central authority, and it has to be *several* distinct groups, or the ruler declares him/herself Emperor in a bid to elevate him/herself among nominal peers. But in this case we've only got one known cultural group, the Crystal Ponies, and the ruler is proclaiming himself King rather than Emperor. There has to be a lot more behind this to support the 'Empire' name. I've speculated about possibilities around this in my worldbuilding blog. The Crystal Empire has some kind of repeater built into it, that causes whatever the Crystal Ponies to feel to be felt by everyone across Equestria. Bingo, there's the Empire moniker. It's not being used in a political/militiary manner, it's emotional domination and mind control. Technically Equestria then is *part* of the Empire when this Imperial City is operational. Brief glance of Celestia pulling off 'dark magic'. Celestia is being a bit of an ass, really. And Luna isn't helping. Where exactly is this train normally going? Rails have to be laid down and maintained to support a train, and unless there's regular traffic on this route it's not going to be passable. Especially with this kind of climate. There's a station here, with a sign with a symbol of a mountain range on it, but no text. I'd accept that it was just a refuelling depot, and but there's an obvious passenger station. Was this station put in just for the purposes of the Guard with the code phrase? Is there a real destination somewhere beyond the Crystal Empire? Shining Armor's Hoth outfit. Cute. For something that is supposed to be 'turned into shadow' Sombra's being treated and reacted to as an active threat. Dark crystals can obviously disrupt unicorn magic. Honestly, story-wise I think this is a mistake. I think they should have reversed Shining Armor and Cadence here, with Shining doing the shield spell, which he had demonstrated before, and Cadence be the one attacked and limited by Sombra. But then, I thought the last episode with those two had their roles reversed as well. And not in a 'genre busting' sense of role reversal, just characters being better suited if they were in each other's roles. Architecture in the Crystal Empire is appropriately fantastic, making all the buildings look like they're carved out of crystal. The central... palace? looks very much like an oversized Eiffel Tower blending with the Chateau de Chambord. While the Eiffel Tower has aged well, originally it was considered a hideous travesty of engineering used purely to advertise a World Fair (1889), like many similar towers and things spotted all over. It's the roofscape of the Chateau with it's 16th century French deliberately overelaborate towers, chimneys, minarets, etc. that has been borrowed here to make this crystal palace appearance a bit less industrial and more artistic. But that just... they were there! Okay fine, Mr. Exposition Dump. What Cadence is doing is not a shield spell, but extending her 'love' special ability to cover the entire city, and this is acting like a shield to keep Sombra at bay. I didn't catch that the first time watching this. A thousand years have passed, but no linguistic shift whatsoever. All the cutie-marks are repeated over and over again, but they are unique to the area. Bow and arrows, desert oasis, olive branch, a single fluer de lis. The script on the book is distinct from the scripts we've seen before. The jousting armor Rainbow Dash is putting on is a highly decorative variant of the armor the various Guards wear. Odd that it isn't in the same or similar style as Sombra. Which means that the Guard armor is truly traditional, dating back a thousand years? To the same period that Celestia and Luna defeated Discord. Highly unusual, unless the modern Guard armor is actually a revival of antique styles. There are differences, so it would be similar to the resurrection of the 15th century Kettle Hat in World War I as the Brodie Helm in England, the Salet came back as the Stahlhelm in Germany. There's only so many ways armor actually works with the way the body moves, so there's really only so many 'styles'. Flag of many hues... Unless we're dealing with iridescence, that flag is of three hues, so that's a bit confusing. Crystal berries. Pair those up with zap apples and you've got another market Applejack. And baaaaaaa. Interesting that the crystal properties extends to *specific* other creatures, but is not general. Flugelhorns are real instruments that look only vaguely like those. It's basically a trumpet with a different shape to the bore, giving it a deeper more mellow sound. What Pinkie's gotten ahold of is more like a double bell euphonium, also a real instrument which has a far more complicated appearance than that and but has the two bells. They were first made in 1880, and they stopped making them in 1960 because almost nobody liked to play the stupid things. That crystal heart is a nice try, but Twilight is obviously not a sculptor. The hairstyles are very Greek. Well, not quite what they thought, but the idea did work to trigger the memories. Oopsie. For all he does do much yet, Sombra's being presented as being quite the threat here. Part 2 And that's basically where Sombra looses some of his threat. They should have lost the outer ring of the city or something a bit more severe. Standard D&D dungeon design, the treasure is in the back of the deepest basement, or the top of the tallest tower. And Twilight duplicates dark magic with only having seeing Celestia do it once. Again. Huh. And the door of despair. A rather nasty trick, but it honestly has the feel of a delaying tactic rather than a permanent trap. For some reason it doesn't really seem to be your true 'worst fear', but more your worst surface fear. Mind you, if Spike has screamed out 'Mommy!' right then, it would have ended me. The Crystal Ponies themselves should be participating in this. Not just watching. Reversing gravity, for those specific individuals. Not technically flying. I would have thought the door itself would have had an alarm on it to alert Sombra, not just close proximity, but okay. He's not quite as careful as presented. Oh, that's nice. An effective anti-teleportation field, a dark magic trick by the effect. Wife throwing. There's a hilarious fanfiction on that. Martial Bliss And the full crystallization effect. Which will turn out to temporary. The crystallization effect changes the girl's manestyles as well, which is an odd effect. But not Shining Armor. No manestyle change for the guys. That's a bit sexist. And the at the time mysterious book appears.

See * for disclaimer Equestria Games (May 3rd 2014 22 minutes) Bulk is using the classic cartoon representation of barbells. In fact, that style is historic but in a weird way, and it took quite a bit of research to find anything out about them. They're usually depicted as being made of iron, and during the Victorian period many were as iron was far more plentiful then. And in many cases the carnie strongmen cheated by using hollow ones. Still heavy as all get-out, but not as heavy as they appeared. Originally the balls were stone, though and were seriously massive and rather expensive to get hollow 'cheaters'. You can still see modern versions made of concrete as single balls under the name 'Atlas Balls'. Nobody does the two balls connected by a bar anymore, as variable barbells with removable weights are far easier to deal with. My granddad (a little 5'2" Scotsman) had a rule at Christmas, if you could pick up this Atlas Stone he had and put it on a barrel, you got to sit with the adults at dinner. It was only a little one, of course, not one of the ridiculous 300lbers that the modern strongmen start with. Very weird motivational speech. It's a bit odd to see RD publically admitting that she can't simply do the whole event herself and still win. Character development slid in sideways there. More pegasi pushups. Pegasi wings bend in a freaking weird way to pull that off. Oh, at least one Earth Pony is in this train car (not including the CMC), but there's a *lot* of pegasi here. No unicorns at all. The impression still is that the Equestria Games is really geared towards pegasi. Which makes a bit of sense given that prior depictions of pegasi culture was heavily slanted towards Greek/Roman costumes. So having them originate the Equestria version of the Olympic games does sorta follow. I'm just surprised that more Earth Pony & Unicorn -slanted events haven't been added to the curriculum over the years given Equestria's nominal equality of the three tribes. The Crystal Empire train depot looks just like all other depots we've seen, just crystalline, and is pretty far in the outskirts of the city. Given that the Crystal Empire was probably vanished when trains were invented, that does make sense, plus it's possible the 'Equestria Games Village' was built recently with it's own depot, following the Equestrian architecture with only nominal nods to Crystal Empire architecture isn't that surprising. Even the Crystal Empire Express we've seen prior would add into that, as that would be a completely new engine, top-of-the-line, purchased as part of the re-integration of the Empire with the greater Equestria. The hell? Spike's just been kidnaped? Arrested? Dunno there. Okay, that also makes sense from a certain point of view. Honor Spike for his contributions, and all that. However, the first dragon to light the Equestria Games fire? That's interesting phrasing, implying that Cadance is anticipating *other* dragons being part of Equestrian society in the future. Shining Armor in the same purple armor/uniform as we've seen him in before. Which likely means he's still actively using his original rank of 'Captain', instead of upgrading simply because he's a now a Prince (Prince Consort, technically). That's not unusual. Most of the British royal family have varying military ranks actually earned from being in service, and when on active duty are supposed to be addressed by their military rank, not their civilian rank. Ah, here we go. The Royal Box. There's *so* many things of interest to note here. One, all four of the princesses have equal size thrones. However, Celestia and Luna have uniquely colored thrones, but Twilight and Cadance's thrones are functionally identical beyond the cutie-marks, and they're a lot darker than the Princess of the Night's throne. In the row below the princesses are what must be titled dignitaries, we've got the two ambassadors from Saddle Arabia... Blueblood? Okay, I guess his Prince rank does mean *something*, and two rather strangely arrayed ponies. The mare's headdress is very Incan in design, while the stallion... that's odd. It's like the crown of Lower Egypt, worn backwards. However, I've seen something vaguely similar in some eastern headdresses, specifically some historical Korean headwear, and a less exaggerated version from Hungary but with a visor. The beard is very ancient world as well, Persian, Egyptian, so on. Next row down, we have Mayor Mare, Fancy Pants, Fleur de Lis, Cherry Jubilee, and two others I don't recognize. Dunno what that mare is wearing, it's too washed out relative to the background, but the old stallion seems to be wearing a military uniform from about 18-19th century. Specifically a bicorn, or cocked hat, worn fore-and-aft with a full ruff. That kind of setup with the ridiculous amount of feathers being worn primarily by civilian officials in a kind of para-military uniform, rather than true military gear. I'm kinda surprised at this last row, to be honest. It's a strange mixed bag of ranks when you throw mayors of relatively small towns, plus Fancy Pants and especially Fleur de Lis, into the Royal Box. I'm not sure what to make of that. Especially with the remainder of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony are in the regular stands. Yeah, does nobody realize Spike's still technically a child? Actually, they might not. Given the lack of dragon lore known by regular Equestrians, and Spike being likely older than the CMC, they might be expecting more teenager-like behavior rather than child. So that *is* all of the Ponyville delegation? One earth pony, and a bunch of pegasi? Interesting. It might be a joke, but Spike acting like a flint-based lighter reminds me of the old book 'Flight of the Dragons'(not the later animated film of the same name), where Peter Dickinson speculated on biological mechanisms that would allow a Dragon to exist in real-life, including using a gizzard-like organ filled with iron ore and flint to provide sparks. Five or six gryphons there, each with relatively unique designs. Nice. A variety of raptors being represented, rather than just the standard eagle-form copy and pasted. You ever notice that Rarity looks at the camera occasionally? I just happened to pause the video on one instance. Everypony else is looking at someone else on screen, but Rarity is looking straight at you. Cute. Now they put spell restrictions on Unicorns... well, they *had* to be able to do this, otherwise there's no way to restrain a criminal Unicorn. It's a little disturbing on how casually they're treating it though. It does further re-enforce the idea that there are no Unicorn-based events at these games, in the same way there was no Unicorn-based tasks during the Winter Wrap-Up ceremony. Good, we actually have indication that the Games take place over multiple days. Ah! One unicorn, at least. Uhhh... For an enchanted arrow that was barely able to freeze a small amount of the target, it's ability to freeze a cloud of that size is pretty impressive. Again we have reference to the idea that clouds have different physics here than in RL, as the frozen cloud has expanded slightly, is completely *solid* rather than turning into hail, and is still falling rather slowly. Apparently the spell restriction was put on the Alicorns as well, and they are unable to break it. That's... disturbing in a way. I did spot Celestia in the mix of pegasi flying up to the ice mass. And Spike's flame ability is again a lot more dangerous than the way ponies react to it would indicate. Anything capable of turning an ice mass that size into rain that quickly is capable of doing a lot of harm. The Gryphon flag is a talon crossed with a lightning bolt. I wonder if they can manipulate weather the same way pegasi can?

1st of all, sorry if this is shouldn't be in Show Discussion, which I suspect it shouldn't. As we all know, in the S4 finale an evil villain from the very first MLP generation returned, Tirek, the Master of Midnight Castle. In this topic I'm going to post a big amount of amazing fanart I've found that was before and after the S4 finale, about this villain. Most of them are impressive and very unique. Which will be your favourite? The original, Lord of Darkness himself. The revamped version, much more muscular and more animal-looking than his ancestor. One if not the first redesign of the characters done by the artist peachiekeenie. Made by Andre_Ma. This one has more goat-like horns. Freakiest one so far. That face is just creepy, and that muscular body and those deformed horns, this one looks like a true devil. Made by Solomen. This one is made to be a more humanistic good Tirek. I don't like it. Made by Haretrinity. This one reminds me of old Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken cartoons, which were mostly gold. However, he looks very weird and way too much of a good guy. Made by Atomic Kitten. Even though Tirek here looks pretty bad-ass, the artist decided to make him a bull. What the crap. Made by Cheshiremoon7 Oh my holy jesus, he looks wonderful. Like an aztec mythological creature. He reminds me of Aku, from Samurai Jack a lot, though... That horse body is WAY too small. Made by: AWildDrawfagAppears <--- Check him out! Here he looks human, but very devious. I don't really like this design. He is way too normal for someone who represents the Devil. Made by: Shellnekoconeko This one looks very menacing, but he looks too much of a brute, at least for me. Made by: gojira007. Tirek appears in Leon_Z's comic "MLP: Pony Wars", where he fights princess Celestia. His design as a shadow-ish creature is not that original, but he looks very threatening. A G4 redesign of Tirek and Megan by Ghost-Peacock. Tirek looks very weird. I don't understand why here Megan is a donkey... Most bad-ass Tirek redesign I've seen so far. He looks like a Balrog, what's not to love about him here? Made By: Cyrilunicorn So, that's all I've got. Which one is your favourite? Do you think Tirek would be more bad-ass in any of this redesigns? Do you know any of the previous artists? Did you like Tirek, G1/G4?

So far there has been 4 generations of mlp. I haven't seen any of them except G4 but I do know some things about the other generations. I also know that Rainbow Dash was in G3 and G3.5 and she was a girly fashionista. So, which RD do you like better? And which generation of Mlp would you recommend to people who haven't watched mlp yet?

I think one of the good things (of MANY) in this finale was Discord's relationship with Tirek. They are both villains from two totally different eras of thinking and it shows. Tirek evokes a very satanic image; the horns, cloven hooves, red skin, corrupting good, imprisoned in Hell etc. This was typical of the time he was made. Look at his counterparts Mum-Ra or Skeletor. At the time, the big fear was what was classically related to death and the infernal or demonic. Discord, inspired by Q, is more geared toward the existential horror that came with the new millennial resurgence of Lovecraftian themes and ideas. His hodgepodge appearance, inexplicable powers, and the unsettling atmosphere he creates all evoke something similar to Nyarlathotep. Further hammering the contrast home is how they are introduced and what they do to their victims. Tirek is introduced in a dark alleyway, obscured by shadow, and his true nature, cloaked. His first line is whispered insidiously, claiming a pony's magic and cutie-mark (perhaps symbolic of their soul?) as his own. Discord is introduced by casually altering the dimensions of his environment, his antics almost playful. His speeches though, reveal dark and twisted truths to his audience, the break or make them question their very purpose of existence. When the two team up, it's almost like a mythological crossover version of the Joker and Red Skull team up.

As the title Says which G4 Character can defeat The Smooze on his/her own? The Elements of harmony don't Count since their 6 Ponies.

See * for disclaimer Rarity and the Curious Case of Charity (Novel, April 8th 2014) I was going through these books, because there were a couple of instances where the books revealed facts that showed up in the regular show some time later. I'm not entirely sure that's ever going to happen again. This book, while it has a quite reasonable characterization of Rarity, doesn't reveal any background information about Rarity. Mostly it's puns. The author, G.M. Berrow, likes creating cities in this series. Neigh Mexicolt, obviously New Mexico. This book was published long after the Rarity Takes Manehattan episode broadcast, but the setup feels like the author wasn't aware of it. Yet, it references Filli Vanilli's the Pony Tones... in a weird way that makes it sound like Rarity isn't a member of it. This is one of those cases where I think G.M. Berrow does get advanced info from the show writers, in order to keep the books 'in universe', but nothing too detailed. Coco Cheval. I have vague memories of that one popping There is a difference between satin and charmeuse, but it's pretty trivial in the long run. Charmeuse, like proper satin, is a *pain* to work with machine stitching, the stupid stuff just won't sit still. And a reference to Derpy/Ditzy complete with preventing speech and confusion as to what her name is. Larsons The Neigh School for Design, is a take off of Parsons: The New School for Design, and referencing M.A. Larson at the same time. The back-references to the show are coming a bit thick. Bridle Gown. I can't believe I didn't notice that pun before. Odd. It suddenly switched from her having no luggage (no books as per Twilight) to having a ton of junk for Spike to carry, and no bridging info between those two states. Mare-is, Prance. And John Gallopiano, an expy of John Galliano. Sacks for Saks is a bit weak, but there's a limit to how much punning any one person can produce. This is following a rather stock plot. It's still a creepy plot, of course. But resolved in a very kid-friendly way. Oh well.