Inspiration Manifestation Liveblog · 4:54am Apr 27th, 2014
Back from an anime convention and relaxing at home--sounds like the perfect time to liveblog the latest episode of MLP!
Well, this looks like a nice, pleasant fair. I'm liking the environment and the aesthetic already.
Loving Pinkie's heart-shaped balloon. And her earnestness while announcing parties is always good.
Rarity's Mom cameo!
Pinkie is really fun here. Loving her intro.
A nice scene with Rarity showing some pride in her work. I like that. Although I'm a bit worried about Spike's presence, since I find his crush on Rarity a bit tiresome.
"Favorite dragon?" Uh, Spike, you're the only dragon she knows besides the random one-episode jerks that crop up on occasion.
Okay, the "this is awful" reveal was great. The voice acting was perfectly done, and so is the art on the pony with the stupid orange hat. It's a kind of Tweedle-dee, Tweedle-dum aesthetic, and it fits him well as a surly guy.
I don't think Rarity is so dumb that she's make a stationary platform for a mobile show. At least, I hope not. So I'm guessing the issue is the puppeteer not grasping how he's supposed to use the device. Maybe those legs can be retracted?
The fainting couch is back!
Oh, Spike. "Just make something else." Like it's that easy. (I'm glad Rarity is calling him on it.)
Not so glad about the stupid "crying woman needs ice cream" trope, but the use of magic does make it a reasonably amusing visual. Still, if they're going to have Rarity get something 'comfort'-esque to make herself feel better, it should suit her more than the cliche ice cream. Rarity likes fine things, so have her indulge in something gourmet. Or, since she likes style, have her float over something to wash and restyle her mane. Something that works with the character.
Wait, did Spike just walk through the Everfree to the castle of the pony sisters? By himself? Man, this place gets less dangerous every time. Similarly, apparently Spike can go there, research, get back, and presumably give Rarity enough time to do whatever it is he finds before the festival starts? Is the castle really that close?
Hey, it's the owl with the impossible name! I like that guy!
Okay, Spike is being better than usual in his role as Rarity's champion. He paid attention to her, correctly identified her problem, and is trying to help in a reasonably clever way. I can get behind this.
Um, why does the Owl not like magic? Rarity uses magic all the time. Sure, if Spike is trying to summon a djinn or something to solve the problem, that's bad, but I thought he was just looking for an idea for something Rarity could make fast?
Great, now Spike's being stupid again. (Although that's almost compensated by Spike's fire actually being useful for something besides a fax machine.)
Really stupid. Spike, you aren't Twilight! Read after you escaping from the Indiana Jones trap!
Oh, so this is one of those "dream it and it exists" spells? Yeah, that's not going to work. Listen to the owl, Spike! Do something sane!
...how much ice cream does Rarity own? (And I guess Spike could get there and back in the time it took Rarity to eat that ice cream, so yeah. Castle is right outside Ponyville.)
Spike: "You have magic, but not the kind that will cause some horrible calamity!"
Rarity: "No, we have Twilight for that. See: Want It Need It, Starswirl spell, etc."
Spike: "Oh, right."
Okay, why are there spikes on that book? Who does that?
Now this is interesting. Rarity seems to be handling the spell fine by just chanting. Before it always looked like some kind of study was needed to learn new magic, as we've seen with Twilight, but Rarity seems to be getting it out of a script. Strange. Maybe this kind of magic is different. (Granted, I'm sure it's evil, so maybe it's deliberately easy to use to tempt foolish mares.)
Is that green supposed to represent Sombra?
Rarity: power to reshape reality, and uses it to prettify a spellbook.
Yes, I'm sure this shortcut won't lead to any negative consequences. That never happens on shows like these. :-)
Rarity's magic is all green now, not just that one spell. Huh. Maybe she really is possessed by King Sombra.
So, it looks like Rarity really did just bungle the initial cart. I have to say, I don't like that. Rarity shouldn't be perfect, but she shouldn't be so dumb that she designs a mobile platform that isn't actually mobile. That's fairly basic.
Kind of wish we got to see the fair. Pinkie Pie built it up so much!
Now that Rarity knows the spell, why does she need the book, exactly? Why does she not want to return it? (Or, if the book is possessing her, why does it care? Does it want to hang around town and possess other ponies too? Actually, that might be it...)
Hey, Owl, if there's a problem, maybe try to communicate such to Twilight?
I like the new laser light show installation at Carousel Boutique.
And now Rarity's going mad with power. (To quote the Simpsons, it beats going mad without power. Nobody listens to you then.)
About halfway through, and despite my gripes about the ice cream and the cart problem, I'm really enjoying this one so far. This is a lot of fun. And normally I'm not a huge fan of the Spike or Rarity focused episodes, but this one just hits every note perfectly.
Er... what do they mean by Spike 'letting' Rarity keep the book? It's not actually his book. He found it abandoned in a ruin. Were they just going to drop it back in the ruin when the festival was done? Why? If it belongs to anyone, it's the princesses, so maybe having Twilight ask if they want it back makes sense, but otherwise, why were they originally planning to abandon it? (I get why Spike might want to dump it now, since it's evil, but surely he didn't know that right away.)
I predict something horrible is about to happen in front of Carrot Top.
Oh, guess not. My bad. :-)
That's a pretty sweet cart, although--if it's gold, like it looks--I'd question if it's too malleable to roll around. Still, it looks awesome.
Come on, show, give Carrot Top a line!
Spike, when Rarity begins going on about how she doesn't need to ask for permission, that's your cue she's gone evil. GET TWILIGHT.
NO, SPIKE, THAT'S THE EXACT WRONG ANSWER.
So, the book is Rarity's precious. Got it.
Rainbow Dash's costume is... really stupid. I know that's the point, but still. It's a really ugly shade of... mauve? I think it's mauve. i'm not sure how even evil!Rarity could think it's a good idea.
SPIKE, YOU'RE BEING STUPID AGAIN.
On the other hand, the treehouse gag is great. Including the bird getting lost. And it works a lot better; it does look nice, and the problem is more that a house like that is unsuited to that particular environment. (Similarly, I wish that Dash's outfit also looked nice. That it's impractical is fine, but it should look fancy.)
Hey, owl, tell Twilight or stop whining, okay? You're not helping either. You could go poke Twilight and lead her to Rarity if you wanted. You're just trolling.
Spike is the definition of an enabler.
I love this screwed up birthday party.
OCTAVIA cameo! It's nice when they don't forget about the best background pony on the show. :-D
Now, in terms of Cadanceverse stuff... let's see, we have a violin and guitar, and also what looks like a very long trumpet operated by hoof pedals, which is about how I figure a pony would play brass. It seems a bit odd to have this combination of instruments, but I'm probably overthinking it. And we've seen all the classical ponies before, I think.
Pinkie, don't interrupt Octavia's performance. She might start painting graffiti all over everything and cut off Rainbow Dash's tail. (Incidentally, I still love the fanfic "Exit Through Canterlot", and you should read it if you haven't already.)
And Rarity's fashions hit a new low with what looks like an outfit Megaman would reject for being too silly.
Ah, good. The owl listened to my sage advice and got Twilight. Hooray!
Spike... why are you defending insane Rarity? You clearly know there's a problem. Please don't be stupid.
Mayor Mare is implementing the town's usual disaster plan, I see. Namely, "get Twilight to do something." Which, to be fair, is usually a pretty good plan.
Oh, right. The promise. Forgot about that.
Spike's dilemna here is nicely done. Usually I don't lik the usual "some promises should be broken" plot, especially since we already did this in Season 1 with secrets ("Green's Not Your Color"). But because Spike has been shown before to want Rarity's friendship, this does work well in this case.
Berry Punch really has bad luck, doesn't she?
Er, Spike, why would removing the spellbook stop the magic? I still don't get this.
Ah, I see Rarity went all King Midas on Ponyville. Nice culmination.
Owl uses Annoy! It's super effective!
Spike, you're a jerk. Way to blame the Owl for your own dumb actions.
And I was right, the book itself is unimportant. It's nice they're consistent about that, at least.
Why does Rarity need multiple chariots, or Rariots, or whatever? Are they one-use only?
I feel like that purple tree is a reference to something, but I don't know what.
Spike: enabler.
On the other hand, it looks like mild criticism can beat whatever that book was, so I guess that wasn't too tough. (I really wish there was more to it than that. Even if it was just Spike needing to cite actual facts and knowledge about Rarity to get through to her, indicating the spell could only be broken by someone who is enough of a friend to know the other pony in deep detail. This feels like a bit of a letdown.)
Not shown: Twilight strangling Spike.
***
I loved this episode. Yes, I had a few gripes: the ice cream thing, the initial puppet stand problem, Spike being stupid in the last half, and the problem being too easily resolves. But overall, I was really entertained and I had a lot of fun with it. Well written, great characters, great VA work and animation, nice moral, and with enough humor to keep things going. Excellent episode.
There were definite flaws, but this episode was far too funny not to like. Rarity was at her insane best.
Her designs were so consistently awful I have to hope that she was just being generally impaired.
~ I find it interesting to note that if Spike had gone to Twilight, this would have ended badly for everyone. That doesn't excuse him, at all (indeed, you'd say he got lucky), but that would have been a lot more interesting.
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Oh, and, hilarious to note, that was a stallion being transformed into Octavia. I wonder if he got turned back after?
There may be a second Tavi wandering around!
That would be a hilarious fic, actually - he gets turned into Tavi and "neglected" to let the princesses turn him back.
You know... in a way, Rarity doing what she did to Pinkie Pie was almost a "take that" at the way Pinkie Pie behaved at the Gala, treating it like a five year old's birthday party.
Nice to see the whole "that kind of party" idea turned on its head for Pinkie, although I felt bad for the foals. Long overdue cameos by Octavia and Blossomforth.
2052009 : Now that you mention it, that's a really good point. I like that interpretation of things.
2051885
Yeah I wondered about that, so now we have Tavi 1 and Tavi 2 wandering around. As they didn't freak out when they get changed presumably its a full change of mind as well so they would both think they were the original.
Getting Twilight to take the book might be a bad, bad plan. You think she could put it back without reading it? Then we get an alphabetically ordered Ponyville covered in white boards and flip charts and book, lovely, lovely books.
2052410
I prefer to think that she's still herself, because that's murder otherwise.
Also, it's hilarious to think of a stallion being really excited that she's now Tavi.
Did the puppeteer remember to mention it's a mobile show? You'd be surprised how often customers forget to mention even basic stuff like that on commissions, because it's "so basic they shouldn't have to mention it".