S07:E24 - Uncommon Bond

[Midnight Seashell 206]

Throughout the episode l was internally singing "My Little Harem" but a good episode nonetheless and l felt that the moral was don't worry about the time you lost but use the time you have now.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Midnight Seashell

[BastementSparkle 20,312]

I have to say, I really like the message of this one. Starlight says she fears that she and Sunburst have grown apart near the end, and Twilight says she feels that will only happen if they both let it. I think the message here is that you really only stop being friends if you want to stop being friends. Starlight and Sunburst might not have as much in common as they used to, and maybe that does mean that they won't be quite as close as they used to be, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to stop being friends at all if they don't want to.

I also like how he talks to Starlight's other friends and they give different answers on why exactly they're friends, because you can be friends for lot's of different reasons. Shares interests, relatable life experiences, just being comfortable around each other. etc. Overall a really cute episode in my opinion.

[Oleks 1,983]

Yet another Starlight’s episode where she tries to solve problems with magic. It’s like a running gag at this point. But this one was quite good, IMO. I’m glad we learned so many new things about Sunburst. I didn’t expect him to make friends so easily. But that’s because I strongly associate him with Rincewind from Discworld – they look kinda similar.

The only thing that disappointed me about this episode – they missed a perfect opportunity to show Maud and Trixie interacting properly. I wanted to see it so much, considering they may have some backstory at the Rock Farm together. But still, a solid episode.
 

[Midnight Blaze 98 1,138]

I liked this episode. 

We saw all Starlight’s pony friends in one episode, I discovered that Twilight likes antiques (she’s now even more like me!) 

Starlight’s spell was a really cool callback to The Cutie Re-mark (the way the scroll floated over the map) and the fillies were adorable!

Spoiler

Plus, the book at the end was a great way to start the finale.

 

[ggg-2 3,550]

TV Tropes says Dragon Pit is a reference to a board game called Fireball Island, but to me it seems more akin to Mouse Trap.

[CypherHoof 26,479]

3 hours ago, Midnight Seashell said:

Throughout the episode l was internally singing "My Little Harem" but a good episode nonetheless and l felt that the moral was don't woory about the time you lost but use the time you have now.

Well, I believe it's just a herd - although my understanding also is that monogamous pairings and formal marriages are the custom in equestria - presumably to appease middle-america sensibilities - but as for Saddle Arabia, who knows?

[Music Chart Fan 818]

Overall, I would probably consider this an average episode. It's good to see Sunburst characterized a bit more, and there are some nice moments with him and Starlight and/or Twilight. There are also some nice sentiments here that friends only drift apart if they let it happen, and that the primary thing with friends is enjoying each other's company. However, while the overall plot - that two childhood friends drifted apart, and it's awkward for them to try to reconnect in adulthood - isn't unrealistic, it's kind of frustrating to watch it unfold, when it seems like it could be worked out by the two of them just being a bit more tactful and talking it out. Yeah, it's awkward and weird that Starlight only seems to suggest things to do from her and Sunburst's childhood (culminating in putting the two of them in their childhood bodies), when the two of them have probably developed different interests since then. But Sunburst, for his part, is rather tactless in often not noticing or caring that Starlight is feeling excluded, even as visiting her is supposedly a, if not the, motivation for his trip in the first place. So why don't the two of them just start off catching up on their respective interests, and together work out activities that they'll both commit to and find enjoyable? It seems that the two of them worked things out by the end of the episode, but their reconnection seems mostly to have happened off-screen. I might also have liked to see Sunburst acknowledge and apologize for his neglecting and excluding Starlight (and Starlight could also have apologized to Sunburst for the spell putting them in their childhood bodies, too).

I kind of saw Starlight's potential problem when she was bursting with excitement to see Sunburst, even though we haven't seen the two of them develop a close friendship or anything. As Starlight was talking about how much she has in common with Sunburst, I was already thinking "How does she know that? When has she hung out with Sunburst and found out all of these things?". Was Starlight basing this idea of having so much in common with Sunburst on their childhood, prior to his moving away? That's a lot of time for the two of them and their interests to have changed. For example, I had no particular interest in music popularity charts or the history of popular music prior to my undergraduate years; and even then, my interest in and knowledge about those things has expanded over time. Someone who had only gotten to know me in, say, elementary or middle school would have no idea that those are one of my main current interests.

Yet, even though it would be reasonable to expect that Sunburst's interests have changed since childhood, the only things Starlight seems to think of or suggest doing with Sunburst are things they did when they were children, which, needless to say, is awkward and weird. The peak of that is obviously Starlight's casting a spell to put her and Sunburst in their bodies as children, while recreating the room they played in as kids, just to play a board game that they already played before as adults. Why not just talk with Sunburst and try to work out something to do that they both would find fun and interesting, rather than each of them kind of dragging the other along to activities with little input? So yeah, Starlight could have handled this meeting better.

However, Sunburst shares some (and perhaps more) blame, too. Twilight and Starlight, at least, both thought that Sunburst is visiting Ponyville to see Starlight. And yet, Sunburst on multiple occasions seems to forget about or neglect Starlight as soon as someone/something catches his interest more. To start, Sunburst's "Um, of course!" response to Starlight's not knowing that he likes antiquing doesn't help. If the two of them haven't talked or hung out much since they were young children, then how would Starlight have known that? Did Sunburst ever tell Starlight that specifically? Sunburst also declares that Starlight is going to love antiquing, but on what basis? Has Starlight displayed any signs to Sunburst that that would be the case?

Then, after going around the antique store with Twilight for a while, Starlight acts pretty obviously bored and excluded, but Sunburst keeps plowing through the antiques, even as he supposedly came to see Starlight. Sunburst even seems to realize that Starlight isn't interested, since he tells her "You don't have to pretend to like all this stuff". So then why continue to browse the antique store and the purchases from it long after Starlight stopped being interested? If Starlight really wants to do something else with Sunburst, couldn't he and Twilight continue their antiquing later? Or if not, couldn't Sunburst arrange a time and place a bit later to do something with Starlight, and let Starlight do her own thing until then? Twilight and Sunburst eventually agree to look through the antiques later, and ask Starlight what she wants to do, but only after spending a lot of time not particularly noticing or caring that Starlight was disengaged and excluded. And later, Sunburst rather tactlessly says he's enjoying his stay in Ponyville because he went antiquing and spent time with Twilight, and he kind of obsesses over Twilight with no mention of Starlight, even as Starlight seems obviously to want to connect with him, and again, despite Sunburst's supposed reason for visiting Ponyville being to see Starlight.

After Starlight's big spell fails to make her and Sunburst reconnect, and she runs out of the room in tears, then Sunburst gets worried about how to reconnect with Starlight and talks to Twilight (and other friends) about it. I can't help wondering, though, whether Sunburst and Twilight are partly thinking that Starlight went off the deep end last time Sunburst moved away and (kind of) stopped being friends, so Sunburst had better really try to stay friends with Starlight this time, to prevent that from happening again. And coming up with a life-size version of Dragon Pit is nice and all, but doesn't seem like much of a solution to the dilemma in itself. Like, sure, Starlight and friends might play that for an hour or two, but then what? I guess we're to assume that Sunburst paid more attention to Starlight and did reconnect with her off-screen, since the two of them are on good terms and talk about enjoying each other's company at the end of the episode. But I would have liked to see that, at least a little bit, and that would have been a good time for Sunburst to acknowledge and apologize for his behavior earlier in the episode.

Finally, from a personal standpoint, I'm not sure I relate much to Starlight's seemingly intense desire (and even desperation) to connect and be friends with Sunburst. I have next to no contact with any of my peers from elementary, middle, or high school, or even undergrad; I'm Facebook friends with some of them, but I don't message them, I don't make much effort to keep up with their posts, and I almost never post anything myself. But I'm fine with that; I wasn't particularly close friends with others at school, etc., and so when we stopped having classes or whatever in common, we basically lost contact. My siblings have essentially always been my best friends. As I mentioned in my post for the episode "Amending Fences", if one of my peers from back when really wanted to catch up with me, I wouldn't refuse, but I would expect it to be kind of awkward, and I wouldn't expect much to come of it.

Now for the rest of my miscellaneous observations:

Sunburst apparently threw his books haphazardly into the suitcase, and after it accidentally opens from Starlight's dropping it, she just levitates the books back into the suitcase haphazardly. Couldn't she attempt to stack the books more neatly so that they fit better and are less likely to be damaged? What would Twilight think if she saw this abuse of books?

I had never heard of bricks being extruded, as opposed to molded, but apparently extrusion of bricks is an actual thing. You never know what you're going to learn watching MLP!

When Sunburst says what a difference there is between the hoof-molded and extruded bricks, Starlight just laughs awkwardly, but why not ask Sunburst what the difference is, as a topic of conversation, if nothing else?

Why does one of the game pieces falling through a trapdoor cause Twilight to flip the board with her magic? It's implied that Sunburst did that when he was much younger and didn't have full control of his magic, but Twilight is obviously a mature adult.

Sunburst is self-conscious about "getting changed" in front of Starlight, which seems unusual, since, in my experience, it's usually girls, more so than guys, who take issue with changing near other people. I want to tell Sunburst to just join the fun, since almost everyone else just runs around naked. And speaking of that, it's kind of funny that three of Starlight's friends - Sunburst, Maud, and Trixie - are among the few ponies we've seen to wear clothes regularly.

Is the Apple family okay with Trixie practicing her new feats on their property? Or are their orchards just kind of open to anyone in Ponyville? Starlight takes Sunburst to the orchard with the plan of eating apples, but it's possible that Applejack has already given Starlight "friend privileges" to eat apples from the orchard, whereas I'm not sure that Applejack has done the same for Trixie.

The game of hiding a ball under one of three cups, and then shuffling the cups before asking which cup the ball is under, doesn't exactly work when your cups have unique patterns on them.

Starlight tells Sunburst that if they made copies of themselves in the Mirror Pool, they could get a year's worth of hanging out over in one day. But, in doing that, they wouldn't have a year's worth of things that they did to talk about or anything, so I wouldn't think that that's quite the same thing.

Also, was Starlight's suggestion there serious? I mean, isn't there kind of a good reason why the Mirror Pool was sealed up? Starlight seems to be aware of the story about Pinkie abusing it, and the bad things that resulted from that. So was Starlight planning on using the Mirror Pool despite that, before Sunburst's shock put a stop to it? If so, that would seem like another case of Starlight using magic (or planning to) without thinking through the consequences.

Sunburst and Maud talk about the metamorphic foliation of the gems that Maud uncovered, and Sunburst says that it has a consistent planar fabric formed by uniform pressure. But does it, really? I'm not really seeing that in the gem as illustrated in the episode.

Finally, it's kind of weird that Sunburst says that the new version of Dragon Pit, where the players move around the board themselves, is "big enough for full-grown ponies". So playing a table-top board game is only something for kids, but making it the size of a room and having the players dress up and be the game pieces makes it "adult"?

[KH7672 1,604]

5 hours ago, C. Thunder Dash said:

This was a really great episode, but the only thing I didn't like about it was that Starlight retorted to using magic and spells to try to solve problems yet again. It's like she didn't learn from "Every Little Thing She Does".

This was nothing like ELTSD. For one Sunburst willing read the spell and showed enthusiasm to see it cast (maybe not be used as a lasting effect but still wanted to see what it does). Starlight's spell is not only safe to her and the subject but it is also easily reversable. And finally this came about because she was told explicitly by Twilight that "hey you two have magical studies in common, I am totally onboard with you using the thing you have in common to solve this problem."

I say Starlight's shown some restraint with her magic. I was surprised she actually bucked the apples down instead of levitating them.

17 hours ago, Kreamer said:

I'm honestly rather peeved that Sunburst didn't see the issues with some of his actions and how he was being rather rude to Starlight. I think she should have communicated her feelings to Sunburst but at the same time I can't get mad at her for being so peeved considering, in this context, Sunburst just seemed to be being extremely inconsiderate.

While I can't condone Sunburst's actions for some one in real life, I can tell you exactly why this works in character. Let's flip the situation and have Starlight visit Sunburst and have a lot in common with his friends.....oh wait. Considering his lifestyle of course he would be overjoyed by finding more ponies he has stuff in common with. Still you're right we should have had at least a line like "Sorry, I haven't had many ponies to talk to and finding so many things in common with a these ponies, I guess I lost sight of the pony I came to see."

[Violet Bookish 349]

26 minutes ago, KH7672 said:

While I can't condone Sunburst's actions for some one in real life, I can tell you exactly why this works in character. Let's flip the situation and have Starlight visit Sunburst and have a lot in common with his friends.....oh wait. Considering his lifestyle of course he would be overjoyed by finding more ponies he has stuff in common with. Still you're right we should have had at least a line like "Sorry, I haven't had many ponies to talk to and finding so many things in common with a these ponies, I guess I lost sight of the pony I came to see."

3

3

I can see your point and why he'd be like this but regardless, I still think he was being a jerk to Starlight and, er... I still really did not enjoy his character. However, I agree and think just a simple statement like that would have fixed the issues I had with this episode. It didn't have to be to be anything big or grand just an apology but... that didn't happen and I can't help but think a bit poorly of Sunburst because of this.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Kreamer
Fixing grammar errors

[Ivan The Adorable 304]

This is an episode that I think speaks to Starlights unique utility as a character. For various reasons it just seems like Starlight's struggles with relationships are by default more hectic and complicated and generally reflective of the more practical problems in forging real relationships than other characters. 

[Ganondorf8 11,118]

If there was one negative about this episode, it would be that the connection it makes to the season finale comes up right at the very end. I would have preferred it if it had been brought up sooner--it didn't need to consume what was happening--to give it more oomph but I suppose it's better than not having anything at all.

[Violet Bookish 349]

5 minutes ago, Ganondorf8 said:

If there was one negative about this episode, it would be that the connection it makes to the season finale comes up right at the very end. I would have preferred it if it had been brought up sooner--it didn't need to consume what was happening--to give it more oomph but I suppose it's better than not having anything at all.

True. It would have been nice to have a more smooth transition and or a bit more leading up to it than just the book. Because the only transition was he small appearance of the book at the end I feel like the events in the final might feel like their a bit forced or like we're just being shoved right into it with little to no leading into it, which can take away some of the enjoyment and believability. Let's just hope the final is good regardless.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Kreamer

[Aethylynn 45]

Starlight really grew on me in this episode. It really brought out her vulnerable side. Seeing her anxious about her friendship with Sunburst shows how she's still struggling to put her life back together. I agree that Sunburst was a little insensitive at first, but he doesn't come across as a particularly socially adept pony, so it is understandable. But he made the effort in the end.

They should have had Spike join in the Dragon Pit game. He wouldn't even need to dress up.

Maud in the group hug was adorable.

[DonMaguz 1,023]

1 hour ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Starlight tells Sunburst that if they made copies of themselves in the Mirror Pool, they could get a year's worth of hanging out over in one day. But, in doing that, they wouldn't have a year's worth of things that they did to talk about or anything, so I wouldn't think that that's quite the same thing.

Also, was Starlight's suggestion there serious? I mean, isn't there kind of a good reason why the Mirror Pool was sealed up? Starlight seems to be aware of the story about Pinkie abusing it, and the bad things that resulted from that. So was Starlight planning on using the Mirror Pool despite that, before Sunburst's shock put a stop to it? If so, that would seem like another case of Starlight using magic (or planning to) without thinking through the consequences.

I forgot to share my thoughts on that scene a few day ago.

I think Starlight was serious in her wishes to clone herself and Starburst. At this point of the episode it seems to me that Starlight is feeling more and more casted aside and that she has lost a lot of quality time with her childhood friend, that is also why when they found out Maud is in the cave she didn't even wait to go away. She had already waited with Twilight and Trixie and she assumed that once again she was not going to have her quality time with Sunburst then, why even stay? Hugely messed up pony right here.

[Victoria Sponge 1,014]

A decent episode with a decent cast and decent humour. I liked it. More Starlight Glimmer is always a good thing  

[Tone Shift 57]

All I can really say about this episode (aside from liking it) is this...

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

What i get from this ep and the finale keep adding fuel to the fire, Sunburst is a jerk to Starlight, anyone who already watch the finale will get that.

[Jade Fire 7,036]

Starlight episode instantly love it! ^-^ a side from that great episode no complaints 

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

Starlight need to find more hobbies outside magics, kites and... boardgame, that mare needs more activities to develop her hobbies. Every ep until now show you how she completely devoted her life to magics, no wonder why she is so 'overpowered', she sacrificed nearly every aspects of her life, how many thing she has missed over 20 years? She didnt even know Wonderbolt for Celestia sake, where her freaking parents right now?! They didnt teach her anything useful to be a functional pony to society. Look at how she is being ignored in the first opening of the episode and the rest of the episode and the finale, really make me feel bad for this pony. 

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

Loved it.  Good development.  I was thrilled to see Sunburst again.  Aside from Twilight, this one centered around the "outcast" party, which I love.  They're very interesting characters, and I think it's awesome that the writers were able to successfully integrate this secondary group into the show and still balance them with the mane 6.  I think that's a big reason why the show is still good and not dragging--if it was only the mane 6 learning lessons over and over, there'd be nothing left to do.  Expanding the cast has been a big win in my book.  It's amazing to me how I've actually changed my mind so much on Trixie.  Before Starlight, I hated Trixie so much, I wanted to do a God of War brutal kill on her.  I mean, she was a good character, but so hate-able.  When she reformed, I still didn't trust her, and didn't imagine I'd ever will.  Now I love her, and it's because they've taken the time to let us get to know her.  It's kinda like how I used to hate CMC episodes, and now I think they're some of the best.  It's really fun to be able to evolve with the characters.

It was a good episode with a realistic problem.  People and life change constantly, and you're not always going to share the same interests that you once did with someone.  I liked that Sunburst pointed out that they don't necessarily need to share many interests as long as they still enjoy each other's company.

Old Ponish.  Lol.  I actually really like the illogical horse puns.  Why would they call a language "Ponish".  That would be like if our ancient ancestors spoke "Humanese".  But I still love it.  It's hilarious and adorable for some reason.  I also loved how they were trying to do that chain escape trick, and then Starlight's just like, "F*ck it.  I'm bored.  I'm just gonna use real magic, now." 

Having Maud's cavern connect to the Mirror Pool was awesome and clever.  Speaking of which, I'm REALLY glad they didn't use the pool.  I was worried about that for a minute.  Like, if they were stupid enough to do that after hearing about the aftermath last time....ugh, that would have been horrible.  I am really glad that that Starlight threw in the line about breaking the seal.  That's all you need to do to maintain continuity.  I would have been really annoyed if they just forgot that Twilight sealed it up.  I hope they resealed it.  I trust Maud not to f*ck with it, but you don't want some random pony or critter falling down that hole in the forest.

The highlight of the episode for me was Sunburst's modesty about getting dressed.  I mean, they're all naked all the time!  It just struck me as hilarious that Starlight left to give him his privacy, and acted a little embarrassed, like, "Oh, of course.  I'm sorry.  How rude of me," when she's naked right in front of him.  Like they all are.  All the time....  On a related tangent, people probably ship Starlight and Sunburst, I imagine.  Do call them Sunlight or Starburst?  Both are good, but I guess Starburst is better.  I mean, it's Starburst.  Anyway, I thought Trixie was being pretty flirty with Sunburst, so I kinda imagined more of a ship there.  Triburst?

Last but not least...

...that book.  THAT BOOK.  HOLY CRAP, OMG, WHAT IS IT???!  THAT BOOK!!  THAT BOOOOOOK!!!

 

 

 

[CypherHoof 26,479]

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

it seems like it could be worked out by the two of them just being a bit more tactful and talking it out.

Sadly, in real life that tends not to happen.  People tend to stand around feeling awkward and ignoring the elephant in the room just as hard as they can.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Yeah, it's awkward and weird that Starlight only seems to suggest things to do from her and Sunburst's childhood (culminating in putting the two of them in their childhood bodies), when the two of them have probably developed different interests since then.

Its not surprising. Sunburst dropped the relationship like a ton of (presumably hoof molded) bricks, and unless it has happened off-screen, they literally have had no contact other than a short, Twi mandated (and exhaustively scripted) reconnection "task" at the Crystalling.   Starlight has clearly not given it much thought; the tree thing presumably was to put as much air between Sunburst and Twi as possible after the previous day's disaster, and I suspect the mirror pool was an escalation along those lines "I have to break a seal to even get in there, surely we will finally get some alone time now???"

So yeah, a big chunk of this trainwreck comes from Starlight not giving any thought to how her friend's visit would go, but expecting it to magically just fall into place around them.

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

But Sunburst, for his part, is rather tactless in often not noticing or caring that Starlight is feeling excluded, even as visiting her is supposedly a, if not the, motivation for his trip in the first place. So why don't the two of them just start off catching up on their respective interests, and together work out activities that they'll both commit to and find enjoyable?

Yeah. I can see this in a back and forth manner. Sunburst was clearly looking forward to visiting what seems to be a mecca for antiquing (presumably hipster unicorns from canterlot rarely make it out to the sticks, so its much less picked over). He also clearly forgot he had dumped SG long before he developed that interest, and completely failed to pick up on the fact she was surprised to hear about it.  As is the theme with ponies, each have some mental or physical quirk/failing they need to recognise and overcome, and this is setting out Sunburst's - he is completely oblivious to social cues and how to maintain relationships. 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

I kind of saw Starlight's potential problem when she was bursting with excitement to see Sunburst, even though we haven't seen the two of them develop a close friendship or anything. As Starlight was talking about how much she has in common with Sunburst, I was already thinking "How does she know that? When has she hung out with Sunburst and found out all of these things?". Was Starlight basing this idea of having so much in common with Sunburst on their childhood, prior to his moving away? That's a lot of time for the two of them and their interests to have changed. For example, I had no particular interest in music popularity charts or the history of popular music prior to my undergraduate years; and even then, my interest in and knowledge about those things has expanded over time. Someone who had only gotten to know me in, say, elementary or middle school would have no idea that those are one of my main current interests.

So, that would be your "antiquing" then

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Yet, even though it would be reasonable to expect that Sunburst's interests have changed since childhood, the only things Starlight seems to think of or suggest doing with Sunburst are things they did when they were children, which, needless to say, is awkward and weird.

Both are clumsy and awkward when it comes to friendships, and indeed, relationships of any type. In this case though, Starlight's traumatic experience as a filly came from forming a single, deep relationship with one other person, then losing that (and turning totally evil, stealing the cutie marks from... yeah, you got that).  She may be SAYING she wants to form a new relationship with present-day Sunburst, but her actions say she wants the old one back - all of it, the spending time alone while he reads and she fails at magic, the games.. and to be fair, for two young fillies, that was probably about all there was, between schooling and being home alone to eat and sleep...

Everything she says and does during the episode reflects that, and her increasing desperation to recover their childhood closeness being foiled by first Twi (who even joins in their game), Trixie (who I see is still a bit teacup focussed, but has Sunburst help her while failing at magic) , Maud, and then Sunburst himself after she tries her creepy back-to-being-foals spell.

The lesson Starlight needed to learn here was that she CAN'T turn back that clock; they can't ever again be just two foals, they need to find new ways to connect if they are to resume their friendship. That Sunburst seems to be bonding more with her friends over THEIR shared interests probably isn't helping either.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

However, Sunburst shares some (and perhaps more) blame, too. Twilight and Starlight, at least, both thought that Sunburst is visiting Ponyville to see Starlight. And yet, Sunburst on multiple occasions seems to forget about or neglect Starlight as soon as someone/something catches his interest more.

Twi shoulders a lot of the blame here. Starlight WAS interested in the magical properties of the crystals, but Twi interrupted them, started out by saying how much Starlight had been looking forward to the visit... Then turned Starlight into the third wheeler for the rest of the day.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Then, after going around the antique store with Twilight for a while, Starlight acts pretty obviously bored and excluded, but Sunburst keeps plowing through the antiques, even as he supposedly came to see Starlight. Sunburst even seems to realize that Starlight isn't interested, since he tells her "You don't have to pretend to like all this stuff". So then why continue to browse the antique store and the purchases from it long after Starlight stopped being interested?

Partly because he is being dragged along in Twi's wake (albeit without much resistance) and equally because Starlight is trying to be a good friend (which sometimes means going along with things you can't find any enthusiasm for, because you can see your friends are having a good time). Right after he started to recognise that *maybe* he had been relying on that a little too much (and made the above statement) he got dragged right back into it by Twi.

Finally, Starlight calls "enough" and clears the junk off the table to bring out the dragon game..... which Twi then enthuses over and inserts herself into that too, because of course she does.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

 And later, Sunburst rather tactlessly says he's enjoying his stay in Ponyville because he went antiquing and spent time with Twilight, and he kind of obsesses over Twilight with no mention of Starlight, even as Starlight seems obviously to want to connect with him, and again, despite Sunburst's supposed reason for visiting Ponyville being to see Starlight.

Probably one of the many reasons Sunburst doesn't have many friends I guess.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

After Starlight's big spell fails to make her and Sunburst reconnect, and she runs out of the room in tears, then Sunburst gets worried about how to reconnect with Starlight and talks to Twilight (and other friends) about it. I can't help wondering, though, whether Sunburst and Twilight are partly thinking that Starlight went off the deep end last time Sunburst moved away and (kind of) stopped being friends, so Sunburst had better really try to stay friends with Starlight this time, to prevent that from happening again.

That's got to be at least one consideration - however, Starlight has many more friends now, even if those which get highlighted in this episode are the odder ones (Twi isn't really a friend but a mentor; Trixie is as self centered as Rarity, but without the latter's mitigating Generosity trait, and Maud is about as much of a contrast to Pinkie as it gets). 

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Sunburst apparently threw his books haphazardly into the suitcase, and after it accidentally opens from Starlight's dropping it, she just levitates the books back into the suitcase haphazardly. Couldn't she attempt to stack the books more neatly so that they fit better and are less likely to be damaged? What would Twilight think if she saw this abuse of books?

Annoying enough that WE have to see this abuse of books....

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

I had never heard of bricks being extruded, as opposed to molded, but apparently extrusion of bricks is an actual thing. You never know what you're going to learn watching MLP!

<masonic comments removed>

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

When Sunburst says what a difference there is between the hoof-molded and extruded bricks, Starlight just laughs awkwardly, but why not ask Sunburst what the difference is, as a topic of conversation, if nothing else?

I guess because she can't see a difference or a reason to care? She *does* get interested when he mentions that chandelier crystals can have magical properties, but her question on that gets interrupted by Twi.

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Why does one of the game pieces falling through a trapdoor cause Twilight to flip the board with her magic? It's implied that Sunburst did that when he was much younger and didn't have full control of his magic, but Twilight is obviously a mature adult.

I would say that her reflex would be to try and "catch" the falling piece, but the fact her magic surrounds the entire board would tend to disprove that. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Sunburst is self-conscious about "getting changed" in front of Starlight, which seems unusual, since, in my experience, it's usually girls, more so than guys, who take issue with changing near other people. I want to tell Sunburst to just join the fun, since almost everyone else just runs around naked. And speaking of that, it's kind of funny that three of Starlight's friends - Sunburst, Maud, and Trixie - are among the few ponies we've seen to wear clothes regularly.

I think it's just some sort of writer's trope. Fluttershy has an embarassed reaction to RD pulling down her bedclothes and showing her naked... despite the fact she is almost always naked.  But on the other hand, I don't think we see Sunburst other than clothed; maybe he has an embarrassing scar or something he keeps hidden?

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

The game of hiding a ball under one of three cups, and then shuffling the cups before asking which cup the ball is under, doesn't exactly work when your cups have unique patterns on them.

Actually, it works better. The trick is to ensure the ball is under the "wrong" cup by moving the ball, not confusing the viewer as to the cup movement (in fact, one common trick is to have some tiny but visible difference on the cups, and only show it on one cup - rotating it to display - but rotate that and another cup while shuffling so that the mark "leaps" from cup to cup during the confusion. Marks will think they are being clever by looking for the difference, and not even try to follow the cups at all)

But either way, during practice it actually helps to have three differently coloured or patterned cups, as it then makes it obvious that the ball has moved rather than just been confused. Of course if you aren't practicing, then you have to plainly swap the ball between cups (lifting two and swapping them above the ball, rather than sliding) so as to "explain" why the ball isn't in the cup its supposed to be.

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Starlight tells Sunburst that if they made copies of themselves in the Mirror Pool, they could get a year's worth of hanging out over in one day. But, in doing that, they wouldn't have a year's worth of things that they did to talk about or anything, so I wouldn't think that that's quite the same thing.

I think that's just Starlight hinting that she isn't getting enough of Sunburst's time during this visit.  Its not like (say) Naruto where the original gains the knowledge of the clones when their spell expiry comes up, although the clones were clearly "less" Pinkie than Pinkie herself was (that could be an Element thing though)

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Also, was Starlight's suggestion there serious? I mean, isn't there kind of a good reason why the Mirror Pool was sealed up?

Starlight messing with magic stuff inadvisably is kinda her thing now

But no, I don't think she was serious, I think she was just voicing a complaint.

 

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Sunburst and Maud talk about the metamorphic foliation of the gems that Maud uncovered, and Sunburst says that it has a consistent planar fabric formed by uniform pressure. But does it, really? I'm not really seeing that in the gem as illustrated in the episode.

I try not to apply real world geophysics to Pony. Any universe where precut gems fall out of a wall in a stream if kicked in the right place obviously isn't going by the usual rules.  But no; clearly what planar features are visible are vertical or near so - that means the aggregate wasn't formed in place, but has been folded heavily - so the pressure from above at this one spot isn't relevant. Also more obviously, you can't take a core sample by tapping with a hoof. On the other hand - the colour is pretty uniform, which DOES indicate consistency of pressure and temperature at metamorphosis - more variation means more variation. so 8/10 for effort, I guess

 

10 hours ago, Music Chart Fan said:

Finally, it's kind of weird that Sunburst says that the new version of Dragon Pit, where the players move around the board themselves, is "big enough for full-grown ponies". So playing a table-top board game is only something for kids, but making it the size of a room and having the players dress up and be the game pieces makes it "adult"?

LARP the Board Game

But given he, Starlight and Twi played the board game earlier, clearly that isn't what he is saying. I think it is more a reference to Starlight's earlier spell and his reaction to it - he doesn't want to go back to being just a foal with her again, even as a game, but does want to reconnect with her as an adult (and honestly, who, as a youngster, didn't wish a board game was big enough you could take the place of the game piece yourself at least once?)

7 hours ago, Battenberg said:

A decent episode with a decent cast and decent humour. I liked it. More Starlight Glimmer is always a good thing  

I love SG as a character, but she needs more development and this wasn't it. Still, seen as a Sunburst episode, this was pretty good.

[Buck Testa 5,503]

Sunburst is really moving up the ranks behind Big Mac for that Most Eligible Bachelor title. Dude had Twilight, Trixie, Maud, AND Starlight into him that episode. Especially Twilight, they hit it off better than any of them imo. I know they'll probably stick to the Starlight and Sunburst pairing, but he is definitely not short of options if you take this ep into account lol. 

[CypherHoof 26,479]

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

 It's amazing to me how I've actually changed my mind so much on Trixie.  Before Starlight, I hated Trixie so much, I wanted to do a God of War brutal kill on her.  I mean, she was a good character, but so hate-able.  When she reformed, I still didn't trust her, and didn't imagine I'd ever will.  Now I love her, and it's because they've taken the time to let us get to know her. 

Still would like to see her being bitchslapped by Fluttershy's bear. Seriously. For a reformed character, she is shallow, self serving and annoying.  Wouldn't like to see her seriously hurt, but I do feel with her as a "best friend" Starlight Glimmer is being held back, because she is such a poor example.

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

It was a good episode with a realistic problem.  People and life change constantly, and you're not always going to share the same interests that you once did with someone.  I liked that Sunburst pointed out that they don't necessarily need to share many interests as long as they still enjoy each other's company.

Wasn't that Maud?

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Old Ponish.  Lol.  I actually really like the illogical horse puns.  Why would they call a language "Ponish".  That would be like if our ancient ancestors spoke "Humanese".  But I still love it.  It's hilarious and adorable for some reason.  I also loved how they were trying to do that chain escape trick, and then Starlight's just like, "F*ck it.  I'm bored.  I'm just gonna use real magic, now." 

A bit cruel that though, given Sunburst and Trixie are both lacking in that department. Possibly that was the point though; Sunburst and Trixie are bonding over their common interest in *substitute* magic, which both are also predictably poor at

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Having Maud's cavern connect to the Mirror Pool was awesome and clever. 

Maud is an awesome pony, OP even in a world that has the Mane 6 in it

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Speaking of which, I'm REALLY glad they didn't use the pool.  I was worried about that for a minute.  Like, if they were stupid enough to do that after hearing about the aftermath last time....ugh, that would have been horrible.  I am really glad that that Starlight threw in the line about breaking the seal.  That's all you need to do to maintain continuity.  I would have been really annoyed if they just forgot that Twilight sealed it up.  I hope they resealed it.  I trust Maud not to f*ck with it, but you don't want some random pony or critter falling down that hole in the forest.

Actually I wouldn't put it past Maud to write out a test schedule and abuse it - but with scientific rigor

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

The highlight of the episode for me was Sunburst's modesty about getting dressed.  I mean, they're all naked all the time!  It just struck me as hilarious that Starlight left to give him his privacy, and acted a little embarrassed, like, "Oh, of course.  I'm sorry.  How rude of me," when she's naked right in front of him.  Like they all are.  All the time....  On a related tangent, people probably ship Starlight and Sunburst, I imagine.  Do call them Sunlight or Starburst?  Both are good, but I guess Starburst is better.  I mean, it's Starburst.  Anyway, I thought Trixie was being pretty flirty with Sunburst, so I kinda imagined more of a ship there.  Triburst?

Meh, this entire episode was one long shipyard - you can't tell me you won't have TwiBurst, TriBurst AND MaudBurst fans after this...

 

29 minutes ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Last but not least...

...that book.  THAT BOOK.  HOLY CRAP, OMG, WHAT IS IT???!  THAT BOOK!!  THAT BOOOOOOK!!!

The hook for the next episode, of course.  But in mint condition and in the original old ponish

12 minutes ago, Buck Testa said:

Sunburst is really moving up the ranks behind Big Mac for that Most Eligible Bachelor title. Dude had Twilight, Trixie, Maud, AND Starlight into him that episode. Especially Twilight, they hit it off better than any of them imo. I know they'll probably stick to the Starlight and Sunburst pairing, but he is definitely not short of options if you take this ep into account lol.

Well to be fair, Shiny was off the market before anyone knew he existed, and Big Mac is taken now. As for feather bangs or Zephyr. .. sweet celestia NO... just NO.

That pretty much leaves the field open. We have some wonderbolts, a few guards so cookie-cutter they might as well be numbered, and now SunBurst, who is the royal crystaller, is friends with Thorax, and has a fair bit in common with the three mares he met on this visit (plus of course still Starlight wanting to put a claim on him)

[Music Chart Fan 818]

2 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

So, that would be your "antiquing" then

That actually might be a pretty apt comparison. While on vacations, my family has been to antique shops, toured old houses, etc., and while that can be mildly interesting, I probably wouldn't choose to expend much effort to do that myself. That's likely how a lot of people view my hobby of compiling music charts and learning the history of popular music, even as I've spent countless hours doing that and could talk about it for hours.

2 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

Finally, Starlight calls "enough" and clears the junk off the table to bring out the dragon game..... which Twi then enthuses over and inserts herself into that too, because of course she does.

It's actually Twilight who (finally) levitates the antique goods off the table and suggests looking through them later, which then prompts Sunburst to ask Starlight what she wants to do. But you make a good point that Twilight is complicit in dragging Sunburst away from talking to or paying much attention to Starlight, and Twilight herself doesn't seem to take much notice of or do much about Starlight's disengagement and exclusion up to that point. And as you suggest, Twilight also doesn't seem to consider whether Starlight might want some one-on-one time with Sunburst.

[Adamgreen 1,129]

It's the type of episode where I could watch time and time again when I'm feeling down. It's not amazing or over the top but it's a nice and calm episode that has a nice lesson that we can all relate in our daily lives.