S07:E19 - It Isn't the Mane Thing About You

[Jeric 46,834]

4 hours ago, Lambdadelta said:

Twilight magic to grow mustang

I have to stop you there. I believe that Twilight actually grew a Camaro SS. You see she tried to grow a Mustang, except Spike reminder her that Mustangs had a brief revival, but just weren't that satisfying to drive.

 

Anyway, the issue is easy to explain away. The answer lies in this  question, how many times have we seen an injury not go healed by magic on the show? 

[Luminance 2,181]

I find this episode enjoyable and surprisingly good. The premise is simple but yet clever and with lots of good, endearing Rarity moments in between. We get to see a lot of sides of Rarity's character in her many feelings about fashion, business and with her importance in the style and influence she portrays within Ponyville.

Her mane gives her confidence and assurance but when it's ruined accidentally, she eventually works to find the positive and lighter side to her problem. Within herself and the help of her friends, she ultimately found the solution to her dilemma by working and acknowledging that it wasn't just her mane itself but it's all of the good character and traits she exhibits. Her ingenuity in return, can turn around her problems into working solutions that are equally ingenious like her creating her "Punk Style" mane and that's what I really like in this episode. Finding the best solution within your problems. 

I also really like the addition of Zecora and the other background ponies in this episode. With more dialogue, it gives these characters a chance to develop more. With the mane 6 also helping Rarity to find that realization it's always so nice that they all help a friend in need. 

There is also lot of details in this episode too which I like. With Pinkie Pie's follow up with the Cake twins, Zecora's home within the Everfree Forest, Starlight suggesting not to time travel for obvious reasons! and by far the most expressive use of Rarity's facial expressions I've had ever scene.

This episode again was a solid and surprisingly enjoyable episode for me to watch. With the addition of Zecora, Rarity's ingenuity to her problem and overall the execution of this episode, I think it's one of Season's 7 best. 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,274]

I am probably not in the camp of really liking this one like a lot of people are, but it was enjoyable. I liked Rarity's sudden punk style a lot, I like the visual gags like Pinkie's and the Cake's manes being all super poofy, and the little things from some of the characters like Starlight were a nice touch. I also got a good laugh out of the bear trying to do some styling at Flutter's.

What I didn't like was how on the nose this episode was. They had to use the word 'mane' 18,000 times to get the point across when the point was established very early. Cart before the ponies had the same issue where the 3 sisters had to constantly tell us what their motive was and that happened here as well. I also personally wasn't fond of ponies simply ignoring Rarity when she had the hood on but I get that it was supposed to tie into her lack of confidence. Also find it weird that all of a sudden they get onto Rarity for 'sulking and feeling sorry for herself' when that was sorta a character trait of hers, being overly dramatic and all, but I suppose it is nice to see some kind of development. I guess I wish I could relate to Rarity being able to gain her confidence back so quickly. Me, I have been struggling with abysmal self confidence for over a decade.

Overall, I did like this episode and I didn't know what to expect so that is good. I definitely didn't love it by any means, except for some bits and bobs, but a decent episode is far better than a bad one.

[Aethylynn 45]

5 hours ago, King of Snake said:

 "Why don't you take a picture?!",

It would have been funny if they actually did take a picture.

[MalekPony 36]

4 hours ago, heavens-champion said:

You say that like it's a bad thing.

No, it's nothing like that; it's just that I don't want the usual mane style Rarity has had since 2010 to go away permanently. I just hate saying goodbye to that mane style.

[Thrond 3,257]

11 hours ago, Lambdadelta said:

The one keep this ep from being great is how contrived it is, i guess pony mane cant be materialized by magic or something but they could just made fake mane easily just for the today shooting, Pinkie did that for Cranky, right!? And he still had that fake hair until Slice of Life, its not that hard to make fake hair out of somebody hair. The story could have ended sooner if Rarity realized how to do something with her mane like the end of the episode, she is a designer, right, she is the one can make anything pretty really fast, i dont know why its take so long for that solution (rock punk mane), Photo Finish didnt demand real mane anyway (they could just add one scene to make the plot work like Photo Finish demand the real mane not artificial). I still enjoy silly stuffs but they need some better explainations to make the plot moving no matter how ridiculous it is.

All of Rarity's plans were thrown off by the loss of her hair. I think she overreacted slightly, but I can relate to having a hard time recovering from a big setback.

 

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

I also personally wasn't fond of ponies simply ignoring Rarity when she had the hood on

I didn't notice at first, but this is actually because Rarity was actively trying to hide her face.

 

One thing I noticed is that the facial expressions hit just the right spot this week. They're goofy, but the episode never goes overboard like other episodes are prone to do. More of that, please.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

17 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

I didn't notice at first, but this is actually because Rarity was actively trying to hide her face.

Yeah, to be fair, ponies are reskin of each other, without their mane, they look like colorful marshmallow.

19 minutes ago, AlexanderThrond said:

All of Rarity's plans were thrown off by the loss of her hair. I think she overreacted slightly, but I can relate to having a hard time recovering from a big setback.

I thought she is professional now, she had 3 stores and her management skills put Sassy Saddle to shame (Forever Filly), oh well, everyone has their bad days ....

[Jeric 46,834]

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

What I didn't like was how on the nose this episode was. They had to use the word 'mane' 18,000 times to get the point across when the point was established very early. Cart before the ponies had the same issue where the 3 sisters had to constantly tell us what their motive was and that happened here as well.

Right. This is something I agree with. There were other little things that seemed to be overused, like showing Rarity constantly brushing her mane at the beginning in multiple scenes when just one scene would get the point across. Every so often Pony does the pre-preschool permanence thing that you see with media aimed at really young audiences. Think Blues Clues, Dora, Yo Gabba Gabba, etc. Repetition is important in some instances, but when it is done so obviously it feels as though the show is talking down to kids. This is a very minor nitpick, but it was noticable in this episode. 

[Music Chart Fan 818]

Overall, I'm not sure that this episode did much for me. On the plus side, it's nice to see the rest of the Mane Six and even Starlight (though NOT Pinkie) trying to help Rarity, and the best part of the episode might be their intervention to convince Rarity to get her mojo back. It's also nice that they surreptitiously arranged for Rarity to be featured in Vanity Mare even after her cancellation, especially since we might not expect the rest of them to be particularly well-versed or interested in the fashion world. However, I generally don't find Rarity's histrionics terribly entertaining. Additionally, the ultimate source of conflict in this episode is Pinkie being thoughtless, which is another repeated occurrence in this show that I've never liked, and I just find Pinkie annoying in the parts of the episode that she's in.

Starting with Pinkie's behavior, as I mentioned, the whole conflict of the episode comes from Pinkie being thoughtless, which of course is a recurring thing for her on this show. Did Pinkie even consider that spraying "super-sticky celebration string" all over everything would create a very difficult mess to clean up? And with the concentration of string that Rarity has stuck on her, did Pinkie spray the can of party string directly at Rarity (while conveniently getting none on herself)? That's a pretty inconsiderate thing to do, especially knowing that Rarity puts a lot of effort into her appearance and would particularly not like it. And of course, Pinkie is nonchalant about the whole mess she's made. Furthermore, Pinkie also twice blows off Rarity's suggestions that Pinkie really should bake new goods, rather than trying to clean off and sell the ones that were covered in "super-sticky celebration string". That also seems remarkably inconsiderate to her (potential) customers. Finally, Pinkie doesn't contribute at all to finding a solution to Rarity's mane/tail dilemma, even though Pinkie was the source of that problem in the first place. The rest of the Mane Six, and even Starlight (though Spike is conspicuously absent), try to help Rarity solve her dilemma, and later convince her to stop moping and be confident again. But while that's happening, Pinkie is essentially written out of the episode, off in her own world, uselessly filling Sugarcube Corner with suds that don't even clean up the party string anyway.

Of course, the other problem in this episode, after Pinkie sprayed the party string everywhere, is the mix-up of the bottles of shampoo and string remover. If Zecora wasn't going to label the two bottles, even as they look indistinguishable, could she have kept them more separate, rather than plunking them down on the table right next to each other? And after the two bottles clattered to the floor, did none of the three of them think "Wait, which bottle was which?"? When Rarity levitates a bottle and runs off with it, in Rarity's mind, how does she know which bottle was supposed to be hers? Also, Zecora rather unconcernedly tells Rarity after the damage is done that she took the wrong bottle the previous day, so did Zecora realize that at the time?

Continuing with Rarity's behavior in the episode, first, it seems a little odd that Rarity doesn't quite realize that she removed most of her mane until she looks in the mirror. Couldn't she feel that most of her mane/tail wasn't there any more? When she went to wrap a towel around it, couldn't she tell that she wasn't wrapping it around much of anything? Next, when Rarity is going around town with the cloak on, is Rarity really that hard to recognize by features other than her mane? Wouldn't the combination of her voice, coat color, iris color, eye shape, eye shadow, etc. still be distinctive? Finally, when Rarity goes to see Twilight and Starlight, she bemoans how differently she's treated when she can't command other ponies' attention, but then, speaking softly and shrinking away might tend to do that. That seems more a problem with Rarity's behavior than her looks, per se, which might have been the point that Twilight and Starlight were trying to make.

Another observation I had when Rarity was trying to prepare for the shoot around town is that it seems like bad business practice for the furniture salespony to have custom furniture made and reserved for a specific customer, only to sell that custom-made furniture to someone else who happens to offer a higher price before the original customer comes to pick it up. In the long run, I imagine customers would want to buy custom furniture from a business which will actually make it and deliver it when they say they will, rather than saying "We'll make furniture for you, but if you don't hurry and pick it up, we might sell it to someone else first".

Also, we're told multiple times in the episode that using magic to fix manes is "tricky" and fraught with peril, but it's never really explained why that would be the case; it's more or less just stated as a known fact. But it's not immediately obvious to me why coming up with a replacement for a mane or causing mane hair in particular to grow would be beyond Equestrian magic. It kind of comes across as writing a convenient solution for Rarity's mane out of existence by fiat, rather than having an organic explanation for it.

Finally, while it is nice that the Mane Six (other than Pinkie) convinced Photo Finish to focus an article on Rarity being "beautiful from the inside out" for Vanity Mare, I can't help thinking that that might not be what was advertised. If readers of Vanity Mare were expecting a story on the most beautiful manes in Equestria, but instead got a feature article that's a "human interest"-type story about Rarity helping ponies around Ponyville, would the readers be okay with that? Or is that not they buy/subscribe to Vanity Mare to read?

Now here's the rest of my miscellaneous observations:

Rarity's nose-booping Bon Bon seems unusually playful (if that's the right term), since I didn't think the two of them were much more than acquaintances. Maybe it's another case of ponies being more physical in normal interactions than is typical in our society.

It sure is convenient that the pony who appears to be running a hardware store has a mannequin with a mane handy to make a window display.

Can we please not have Pinkie use her mane/tail like hands to grip things? I just find that REALLY annoying and stupid; I want to hit my head against the wall every time I see it happen.

With all the tubs of ice cream Rarity's eating, is she looking to gain weight to go along with her mangled mane and tail?

Upon seeing the still messy inside of Sugarcube Corner, Rarity says "perhaps I'll fetch the rest of that remover potion". But we saw earlier that Rarity dumped the entire bottle in her mane and levitated away an empty bottle.

[Truffles 2,033]

1 hour ago, Jeric said:

There were other little things that seemed to be overused, like showing Rarity constantly brushing her mane at the beginning in multiple scenes when just one scene would get the point across.

It felt like the cold open was the longest one we've ever had in an episode. And I agree 100% it went on too long.

We get it. Rarity really likes her mane. 

In fact, it gave me a bit of a negative impression of her at first because she came off as vain, and I'm sure that wasn't the point since those of us who watch the show regularly know how she looks is about confidence and not vanity.

Plus, they could have put that time to better use to give a certain dragon some lines expressing his thoughts on the situation since Rarity's emotional state is of great importance to him. 

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Did Pinkie even consider that spraying "super-sticky celebration string" all over everything would create a very difficult mess to clean up?

I wonder who invented a product like that, anyway? It seems like such a thing wouldn't sell well after word-of-mouth spread about how difficult it was to clean up. It makes me think Pinkie invented it herself down in her party dungeon basement.

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

If Zecora wasn't going to label the two bottles, even as they look indistinguishable, could she have kept them more separate, rather than plunking them down on the table right next to each other?

I was surprised the potions were identical in color. Usually, in fiction (and games) potions that do different things are different colors. It might have been better to have them in opaque bottles so this wasn't an issue, but it's just a minor quibble for me, anyway.

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Finally, when Rarity goes to see Twilight and Starlight, she bemoans how differently she's treated when she can't command other ponies' attention, but then, speaking softly and shrinking away might tend to do that. That seems more a problem with Rarity's behavior than her looks, per se, which might have been the point that Twilight and Starlight were trying to make.

Exactly. That whole thing with her being ignored was the set-up for the resolution. Namely, it wasn't necessarily her mane that needed fixing, but her confidence.

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

With all the tubs of ice cream Rarity's eating, is she looking to gain weight to go along with her mangled mane and tail?

It seems like ever since her pity party in "Inspiration Manifestation," Rarity eating tubs of ice cream is now the running gag whenever she gets depressed. I miss the "nom, nom, nom" that goes with it, however. =)

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Upon seeing the still messy inside of Sugarcube Corner, Rarity says "perhaps I'll fetch the rest of that remover potion". But we saw earlier that Rarity dumped the entire bottle in her mane and levitated away an empty bottle.

Good catch! I didn't even notice this. (Partly because I normally only see episodes in low-def since DFC doesn't have an HD channel on my satellite provider. =P )

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,809]

Oh, this episode was phenomenal!

Punk Rarity was awesome to watch. Surprised she didn't have as hard of a breakdown as previous episodes...

[Music Chart Fan 818]

1 hour ago, Truffles said:

Good catch! I didn't even notice this. (Partly because I normally only see episodes in low-def since DFC doesn't have an HD channel on my satellite provider. =P )

Similarly, I totally missed Apple Bloom talking to Burnt Oak and Grand Pear and Granny Smith running the same booth at the beginning of the episode, until I saw @Batbrony point those things out in one of his posts. I guess that's the advantage of crowdsourcing the noticing of details like that!

[Thrond 3,257]

3 hours ago, Lambdadelta said:

 

I thought she is professional now, she had 3 stores and her management skills put Sassy Saddle to shame (Forever Filly), oh well, everyone has their bad days ....

I get the impression that it's not hard to out-manage Saddy Saddles. 

[Ganondox 899]

This episode was dependent on a string of plot contrivances. First an event which doesn't make sense at this point in time and Pinkie being a careless jerk, then the fact we we're just supposed to accept mane magic is too hard, harder than time travel, and the utter inability to create or a least find a usable wig. If you look beyond that though it's a pretty good episode, the ending in particular was great. Also, the animators or whatever really did a great job this time around, great use aesthetics for both the pretty and the ugly, great facial expressions, and so much continuity nods in the background. It's odd though how even with all the continuity nods there was not even a mention of Zephyr Breeze, this would have been the perfect time to bring him back. 

3 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

 

Rarity's nose-booping Bon Bon seems unusually playful (if that's the right term), since I didn't think the two of them were much more than acquaintances. Maybe it's another case of ponies being more physical in normal interactions than is typical in our society.

 

Nose rubbing is a casual greeting in many cultures. When you consider that ponies have four legs, it makes sense than face touching would be less intimate for them. 

[Meeps 297]

47 minutes ago, Ganondox said:

First an event which doesn't make sense at this point in time and Pinkie being a careless jerk, then the fact we we're just supposed to accept mane magic is too hard, harder than time travel, and the utter inability to create or a least find a usable wig. If you look beyond that though it's a pretty good episode, the ending in particular was great.

Pinkie being an absolute jerk didn't make sense to me either, enough that both I and the person I watched the episode with both made a note of it. Rarity's reaction to having her magnificent mane reduced to a sticky, yellow mess was also surprisingly subdued, IMO. 

On 9/16/2017 at 3:28 PM, DJ_Bonebraker said:

Anyways, I LOVED Rarity's punk look, and once I get back in the groove of drawing, I might have to do a pic of About Time Twilight, Apocalypse Dash from the Sombra Timeline & Punk Rarity from this episode all together.

You must! I'd love to see that sometime!

 

In regards to the episode, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think that having confidence tied into a certain aspect of yourself is pretty common, and having that part of yourself that you are always complimented on suddenly taken away can be shocking! as someone who has noticed the difference in public reception regarding how much time I've put into how I look on a day, it's amazing how you can go from ignored or "just another person in the crowd" to the draw of every eye. I dare say poor Rarity has rarely gone without public affirmation for her beauty, if her reaction afterwards is any indicator!

[Sonic5421 423]

A nice slice of life episode for us to see Zecora with a speaking role again after so long, along with the Cake twins, Pound and Pumpkin.

Pinkie overdoes it with celebrating when the twins had their first sneeze with the silly string, so they go see Zecora for help with two things: Cleaning up Sugarcube Corner, and Rarity getting her mane and tail cleaned up for a photo shoot with Photo Finish. However, when Rarity panics regarding some bad ideas Zecora brings up, the potions Zecora made for Pinkie and Rarity's problems get mixed up, and Rarity ends up with the removal potion that was supposed to help Pinkie, leading to Rarity just about rendering herself bald and tailless when she sees the aftermath.

Fearing for her photo shoot, she turns to the rest of the Mane Six and Starlight for help, but nothing they try is able to help her, leading to her confining herself in Carousel Boutique to once again drown her sorrows in ice cream. However, once the Mane Six convince her that beauty does not lie on the outside, but on the inside, Rarity is able to work what's left of her mane and tail into a punk-style look, and is able to continue with her life, before finally realizing that Pinkie got the shampoo meant for her from Zecora, and arrive to find that the shampoo really spruced up Pinkie and the twins' manes and tails, but really made a mess of the store alongside the silly string.

Cut to several months later, with Pinkie and Rarity's manes and tails back to normal, with Rarity's fully regrown and in its normal style again, and it turns out the Mane Six had Photo Finish covertly take pictures of Rarity for the magazine anyhow, inspiring Ponyville to take after Rarity and style their manes after her punk look as a fashion trend.

This was a good episode for me. I loved how Pinkie's mane and tail looked after the shampoo worked it over, and I'll give the episode a 9.5/10 for my score.

[Tilgoreth 1,915]

Biggest flaw: Bon Bon didn't give Lyra those flowers. Guys she's cheating on her girlfriend! 

But that was an easy fandom joke. Missed opurtunity. I mean come on, how hard is it to animate Bon Bon giving Lyra the flowers? She was standing right behind her!

Also still don't like the resolution very much. I love the new style they gave her, just not what it was meant to imply. If they really wanted a "beauty is on the inside" moral Rarity should have left her mane the way it was.

It feels shallow that she had to change it. 

The episode didn't really go anywhere. It felt just like a "day in the life of" episode without anything really happening. 

And again welcome to the Starlight Glimmer show! But for real GlimGlam is showing up way more than she did in season six. And she arleady showed up a lot in season six. I mean what is Starlight going to be adopted by the Sparkle family now?(can she please be? Hasbro make it happen).

On a side note there are like five or six differnt fics on fimfiction that deal with this episode in some way. Two of them revolve around what Spike did to comfort Rarity. And those are written by differnt authors. I just think it's kind of weird we are getting so many fics this quickly. 

(Then again there was a fic called Much ado about a Belle, that came out about a month ago. And it dealt with how Cheerilie felt after "Hard To Say Anything".)

EDIT: 

Why did it take so long for that issue of Vanity Mare to come out? I mean what gives? Also is the show saying that only a year has passed since season two? Pinkie said it's been a year since the baby cakes first sneeze. Unless that happend in like season five, I don't see what else the writers could be implying.

What's sad is that it isn't unreasoble that season three to seven encompases a year. Which means that Starlight has only been a good gut for like three or four months at most.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Tilgoreth

[lua 105]

I think it was a solid episode, not exactly the best but its good.

[takai 1,060]

Really great episode, as is every Rarity episode. The thing I found odd was the fact they went to Zacora instead of Twilight. There's no way that Twilight wouldn't have a sticky remover spell somewhere. Zacora just felt shoe-horned in.

Rarity's freak outs are still, after 7 seasons, hilarious. And seeing her help ponies in town makes me realize just how great Rarity's character is. She's strong, smart, and confident, all while embracing her femininity.

I really loved what she did with her mane in the end, Rocker Rarity looked fantastic. But I missed what she used to make it. It did provide a great lesson at the end too.

All in all, a great episode that's an improvement over the past few meh episodes.

[BlinkZ 1,151]

On 9/16/2017 at 3:15 PM, Babyyoshi309 said:

That Punk version of Rarity made me cringe so much. Like I could barely watch it. It was that bad. That and the absence of Pinkie completely ruined the episode. Like seriously, why were they acting like that looked good?!!!!!! 

Or the fact that they had Starlight JUST for a time travel joke..and yet no Spike
Sweetei belle ; "OH COME ON!"

17 hours ago, Jeric said:

I have to stop you there. I believe that Twilight actually grew a Camaro SS. You see she tried to grow a Mustang, except Spike reminder her that Mustangs had a brief revival, but just weren't that satisfying to drive.

 

Anyway, the issue is easy to explain away. The answer lies in this  question, how many times have we seen an injury not go healed by magic on the show? 

Does Rainbow wing healing in the span of 2 days count? caue bones don't heal that fast..the X rays showed fractures 

[Jeric 46,834]

35 minutes ago, BlinkZ said:

Or the fact that they had Starlight JUST for a time travel joke..and yet no Spike
Sweetei belle ; "OH COME ON!"

Does Rainbow wing healing in the span of 2 days count? caue bones don't heal that fast..the X rays showed fractures 

I don't have a real world example of how flying equine bones heal, especially ones that defy physics. 

[Truffles 2,033]

2 hours ago, Tilgoreth said:

Also is the show saying that only a year has passed since season two? Pinkie said it's been a year since the baby cakes first sneeze. Unless that happend in like season five, I don't see what else the writers could be implying.

What's sad is that it isn't unreasoble that season three to seven encompases a year. Which means that Starlight has only been a good gut for like three or four months at most.

It's easier for me to believe the Cake twins simply didn't sneeze for a couple of years, though I'd have to go through every single episode they have appeared in to be able to say that with any confidence.

Otherwise I have to explain away 3 Hearthswarming Eves and 2 Nightmare Nights and a host of other evidence to be able to claim we're still just outside a year of their birth. Unless the follow-ups to those take place out of order in the future? O_o

[Sparklefan1234 161,850]

 I made an error. 

I thought in the magazine Rarity was on the cover of subtly spelled "Vain" but, I was mistaken.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Sparklefan1234

[Tilgoreth 1,915]

1 hour ago, Truffles said:

It's easier for me to believe the Cake twins simply didn't sneeze for a couple of years, though I'd have to go through every single episode they have appeared in to be able to say that with any confidence.

Otherwise I have to explain away 3 Hearthswarming Eves and 2 Nightmare Nights and a host of other evidence to be able to claim we're still just outside a year of their birth. Unless the follow-ups to those take place out of order in the future? O_o

I forgot about those. I guess it was just meant as a joke then. but babies sneeze just like adults though. 

[BlinkZ 1,151]

57 minutes ago, Tilgoreth said:

I forgot about those. I guess it was just meant as a joke then. but babies sneeze just like adults though. 

quite simple explination my der